The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating complaints that commissioners of a Virginia county effectively blocked a proposed Islamic cemetery.
The Free Lance-Star reported Wednesday that a Justice Department official, Shina Majeed, wrote that the inquiry will scrutinize how the Stafford County's zoning law treats religious land uses, particularly the proposed cemetery of the All Muslim Association of America (AMAA).The non profit association runs the largest Muslim cemetery in the country. Local Muslims call it the Stafford Cemetery.
AMAA started a cemetery on Brooke Road in 1996, but ran out of plots in April 2017. The original cemetery was 7.5 acres, but when an adjacent 77 acre plot went into foreclosure, the association took a loan and brought the property.
AMAA then purchased the property in concern on Garrisonville Road for $800,000 in May 2015, when the county’s ordinance permitted a cemetery there.
AMAA sold the 77-acre parcel back to the county for $650,000 last year. The Free Lance -Star writes that "the county apparently bought it to preserve environmentally sensitive land near the Crow’s Nest Natural Area Preserve."
The AMAA is known as a place where those who cannot afford a funeral can be buried as it doesn’t charge for the gravesite. Serving the DC Metro, people from as far away as Michigan come here to be buried.
Board member Sikander Javed thinks it is because the cemetery of the cost and exclusivity for Muslims; “even with added transportation costs, it is still cheaper for people to bury their relatives here."
The local newspaper reports the Stafford Board of Supervisors approved changes to the county's cemetery ordinance that effectively disqualified plans for the Muslim burial ground in 2016 by adding 9 times stricter requirements. Counties have used and abused zoning laws to restrict Islamic ventures across the country and Muslims aren't taking it anymore.
The department also referred to a local planning commission member, Crystal Vanuch, in a request for documents. Vanuch's home is across the street from the proposed cemetery. According to the Associated Press, Vanuch says she and the county did nothing wrong.
John Khan, vice president of the All Muslim Association of America, filed a conflict-of-interest complaint against Vanuch to Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Olsen on Dec. 1.
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