In 2010, American Muslim Fatima Thompson and a few others organized and participated in a "pray-in" at the Islamic Center of Washington in D.C. Police were summoned and threatened to arrest the women when they refused to leave the main prayer hall. The women continued their protest against being corralled in what they referred to as the "penalty box" (a prayer space reserved for only women). Thompson called the penalty box "an overheated, dark back room." A second protest also staged by the same group on the eve of International Women's Day in 2010 resulted in calls to the police and threats of arrest again. However, the women were not arrested on either occasion. In May 2010, five women prayed with men at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque, one of the Washington region's largest Islamic centers. After the prayers, a member of the mosque called Fairfax police who asked the women to leave. However, later in 2010, it was decided that D.C. police would no longer intervene in such protests.