Seattle (IINA) : The security firm that patrols the headquarters of tech giant Amazon in Seattle is under fire for allegedly mistreating its Muslim workers, with critics claiming the contractor does not appropriately accommodate their faith and retaliates against those who speak out.

Amazon has touted itself as a defender of Muslim American rights in recent months. The company made headlines for being one of several tech companies that condemned Donald Trump’s Muslim ban; CEO Jeff Bezos even vowed to fight the ban in court and on Capitol Hill. Amazon also provides stand-alone prayer rooms for employees who work high-tech jobs within the company, ThinkProgress News reported quoting Senior Religion Reporter Jack Jenkins.

But Muslims employed by the e-commerce giant’s security contractor, Security Industry Specialists (SIS), say the use of prayer rooms was not fully extended to lower-paid officers who patrol Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington even though Muslims represent a sizable portion of the roughly 800 security personnel.

More broadly, they claim that SIS and Amazon both have a history of mistreating or failing to accommodate those who claim Islam as their faith.

Earlier this year, workers began claiming that SIS employees cannot access prayer rooms throughout the work day, even though devout Muslims typically pray five times a day as part of their faith.

SIS president and CFO Tom Seltz refuted this allegation in an email to ThinkProgress, insisting that staff has always been allowed to use Amazon rooms for daily prayers.

“Our employees assigned to Amazon have always been permitted to access space (when available) to pray on breaks, even before dedicated prayer rooms were formally introduced,” he said. “Before prayer rooms were introduced, employees generally used a vacant conference room or quiet room, when available. This has been the case for the past four years (since we’ve been at Amazon), and the recent addition of dedicated prayer rooms has just made access even easier. We count ourselves as fortunate that Amazon extends this accommodation to our employees.”

Disputes over Muslim prayer policies are becoming increasingly common in the United States. In 2016, nearly 150 Muslim employees were fired for refusing to show up for work at a meat processing plant during a heated dispute over prayer accommodations, prompting several employees to eventually file charges. A similar dispute flared up at a manufacturing plant in Wisconsin that same year when the company suddenly revoked a policy that had previously allowed 53 Muslim workers to take five-minute breaks for daily prayers. In most cases, local chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) operate as negotiators to help resolve the issue.

None of the controversies have involved a company as high-profile as Amazon, however. Amazon declined to offer public comment on this article.

The debate came to a head on February 17, when protestors worked with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to convene a “pray-in” outside Amazon’s headquarters to draw attention to the issue. That protest was followed by another rally on March 31, when Muslim workers held a press conference and spoke out against what they described as unfair policies and mistreatment in the workplace.