Prisoners in the U.S. request special permission to attend the total eclipse of the sun

Six inmates in the state of New York are asking them to be granted special permission to attend the total on Monday (84.24), stressing that in contrast their religious freedom will be violated. A total eclipse of sun will become visible in North America on Monday afternoon, a rare phenomenon that has caused great enthusiasm in the US. Rooms closed for months, special commercial flights, distribution of protection glasses. And six prisoners also want to participate in the celebration themselves. In the face of the categorical denial of the penitentiary administration, they filed their request before federal justice. “Everyone pointed out his deep religious faith, according to which the April sun eclipse is a religious event, to be observed, for which they must ask questions, in order to be able to exercise their faith,” he is stressed in the lawsuit. All of them “will see their constitutional rights exercise their faith to be violated”, if the New York state’s correctional administration does not revise its decision to ban any exit outside the cell on Monday, from 14.00 to 17.00 local time, the exact time of the eclipse, the prisoners stress. The initiator of the protest, which intensifys initiatives after January to see the eclipse, declares an atheist, but also distinguishes in this astronomical phenomenon “an event of great religious importance”. One Muslim plaintiff invokes excerpts from holy texts, two Christians report a passage from the Bible that speaks of an eclipse, another declares a believer of the santeria religion, from the Caribbean. The ban on exit to the courtyard during the eclipse is justified by reasons of “security”, emphasises the penitentiary administration in a press release, where it adds that special glasses will be distributed to prison officials and prisoners, those who wish to look at the sky from their cell.