New Jersey Muslim Corrections Officer Claims Religious Discrimination

In Passiac County, New Jersey, Tamir Kozrosh, a Muslim provisional corrections officer says that he was fired by the sheriff's office for complaining about ongoing religious harassment. The Passiac County Herald News reports that Kozrosh says he was continually passed over for promotion. He claims he was reprimanded for refusing to work overtime during Ramadan, was yelled at for requesting that his food not be cooked on a grill covered with pork and was subjected to constant Muslim jokes, such as the posting of a doctored poster of his face superimposed on a poster of Osama bin Laden. A sheriff's office spokesman said that Kozrosh participated in making some of the doctored posters. The sheriff's department says he was fired primarily because he refused to cooperate in an internal affairs investigation of a complaint from a woman about an anonymous sexually explicit phone call from someone using a nickname said to have been used by Kozrosh.