A Muslim Long Island family on Tuesday slapped the owners of the Empire State Building with a scathing $5 million lawsuit claiming they were embarrassingly forced off the tourist hotspot’s observation deck last summer by security — after they attempted to pray in public.
Fahad and Amina Tirmizi of Farmingville filed the Manhattan federal court suit against the midtown icon’s owner and property manager Malkin Properties, security company Andrews International Inc. and others, saying their civil rights were violated July 2 when they were allegedly “assaulted, battered and forcibly removed” from the famed Observatory while trying to pray around 11 pm.
The suit claims that Fahad Tirmizi, 32, and his 30-year-old wife were unfairly targeted “because they were Muslim, wearing traditional Muslim attire, and/or engaged in Muslim prayer.” The couple was accompanied by their two young children who watched in horror as they are their parents were booted off the observation deck, the suit alleges.
“The defendants have an unlawful policy, custom, practice, procedure and/or rule, whether express or implied, of barring patrons from exercising their religious beliefs in the Empire State Building and/or the Observatory,” the suit says.
The family was visiting the 86th-floor outdoor Observatory around the time when they’re required by religious beliefs to recite evening prayers, so they walked over to a section where there was little foot traffic, the suit says.
While Amina briefly prayed without incident, a security guard strutted over to Fahad and “menacingly poked” him with his hands and feet and loudly told him he “was not allowed to pray while at the Observatory.”
He and another guard then told the entire family they had to leave “immediately” and “forcibly escorted” the “plaintiffs and their children to the Observatory elevator, down to the lobby, and out of the of the Empire State Building entirely.”
“As a result of the foregoing conduct, plaintiffs were shamed, humiliated, and embarrassed in front of each other, their children and the general public,” the suit says.
A lawyer for the Tirmizi family and reps for Malkin Properties did not immediately return messages.
