Los Angeles, California, the US – Sajad Shakoor faced a painful choice while incarcerated at California’s Pleasant Valley State Prison in 2002: remove his chitrali cap — a core part of his identity as a Muslim of Pakistani heritage — or end up in a solitary confinement cell known informally as “the hole”.
In order to comply with prison regulations, Shakoor had already made the difficult decision to shave his beard. Other Muslims, many of whom consider growing long beards to be a religious obligation, had refused to do so and been sent to solitary.
