Pagan prisoners in Britain are demanding the right to pray naked and wear hooded robes in their cells.
Under prison guidelines, they are allowed to wear only robes without hoods to ensure their faces can be seen. And the practice of sometimes stripping naked to pray is simply not allowed.
Now one unnamed inmate at Frankland prison, a high security jail in Durham, has claimed that he is being ‘discriminated against ‘because he is not allowed to pray wearing a ‘druid-style’ hooded robe in his cell.
In a letter to prisoners’ magazine Inside Time last week, he said some inmates were allowed to use scarves to cover their heads during prayer and that it ‘wasn’t fair’ that pagan prisoners were banned from wearing a hooded robe.
He said: ‘Why can I not wear my hooded robe?
‘This is blatant discrimination and should be seriously looked at – there should be one rule for all or no rules at all.’
After contacting the Pagan Federation for advice, he is calling on the prison to change its rules.
Another prisoner, who is serving time at Wandsworth jail, has complained about not being allowed to pray naked – or ‘skyclad’, as it is known by pagans.
He said that he ‘had a right’ to perform rituals while ‘skyclad’ and that he should be allowed to cover the windows of his cell so he ‘doesn’t offend anyone’.
The Ministry of Justice allows pagan prisoners to have a number of religious ‘artefacts’ in their cells, including incense, a pentagram necklace, a ‘flexible twig or wand’, rune stones made from ‘wood, stone or clay’, a chalice, an altar to pray at and tarot cards.
But the guidelines state: ‘Most pagans wear ordinary dress for worship – in prison, skyclad [naked] worship is not permitted [and] a hoodless robe [is permitted], but only to be used during private or corporate worship.’ - Daily Mail