|
Winnipeg Free Press – August 18, 2006
Muslim doctor forced off plane
Mary Agnes Welch
Three young Winnipeg doctors -- one a Muslim -- were kicked off a flight home from Denver earlier this week after a passenger falsely identified them as a terrorist threat.
Dr. Ahmed Farooq, a fourth-year radiology resident, and two physician friends want an apology from United Airlines and assurances staff will be better trained to identify genuine threats.
Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin has also asked federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day to raise the issue with his counterpart in Washington.
"It's the most egregious example of this device of racial profiling I know about among my constituents," said Martin. "These are valuable, upstanding members of our society. Civil rights shouldn't be collateral damage in this whole fight against terrorism."
But officials with United Airlines say they are obliged to take any allegations threatening passenger safety seriously, particularly in a period of heightened tension like the one following last week's discovery of a British terrorist plot targeting transatlantic flights.
Farooq, 27, and his fellow residents were on their way home from a physics course near San Francisco, Calif., in preparation for an upcoming board exam. They were settling into their connecting flight from Denver to Winnipeg when Farooq asked his friend -- a young doctor of East Indian decent who did not want his name published -- to switch seats. Farooq was looking for some privacy so he could discreetly recite his evening prayers.
Shortly before take-off, the two doctors noticed a young man seated a row ahead was giving them distasteful looks and at one point threatened to "pound" Farooq.
Farooq and his friends learned later the passenger, who had clearly been drinking, told a flight attendant he had overheard Farooq's friend say "Now, I can control the aisle."
The aircraft returned to the terminal and an airline official came to escort Farooq, his seatmate and their female colleague off the flight, an experience Farooq called "humiliating."
Within moments, the three were surrounded by Denver police, airport security and an official from the Transportation Security Administration. Their identification was taken from them, they were told not to speak to one another and an FBI agent was consulted via telephone.
Meanwhile, their flight to Winnipeg departed with the passenger who lodged the complaint still on board.
"Within two or three minutes, the guy from the TSA said he thought the airline staff overreacted and that we never should have been pulled from the plane," said Farooq. "He apologized. Once they relaxed, they were polite and professional."…..
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/local/story/3641638p-4209928c.html
The Guardian – August 21, 2006
Removal of men from holiday flight condemned
By Alex Kumi
The removal of two men from a holiday flight on the grounds that fellow passengers feared they were terrorists was condemned yesterday. The pair, thought to be in their 20s and of Middle Eastern or Asian appearance, were removed from a flight to Manchester from Malaga, Spain, after passengers became suspicious of their behaviour.
In the early hours of Wednesday a number of passengers on Monarch Airlines flight ZB613 left the plane, refusing to fly unless the two men were removed, causing a three-hour delay.
Passengers are reported to have become suspicious after the men were overheard apparently speaking Arabic and seen repeatedly checking their watches, although this has not been confirmed by the airline.
Muslim MP Khalid Mahmood described the incident as "hugely irrational". "People need to get their senses back into order. You can't just accuse anybody who's of Asian appearance and treat them like a terrorist," said the Labour MP for Birmingham.
"If somebody is threatening anybody it's understandable, but when they are just travelling for their own needs it's not. People just need to calm down."
These sentiments were echoed by Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, of the Muslim Parliament of Britain, who described the incident as "sad and shocking".
"We have got to find a better way where somebody's look is not the basis for this kind of action - it has to be more intelligence-led," he said.
And, warning that the incident was an example of what the Metropolitan police chief superintendent Ali Dizaei called a new offence of "travelling while Asian", he said: "The greatest danger is that the extremists have succeeded in convincing Muslims and Arabs that the war on terror isn't a war on terror but a war on Islam and Muslims."
The Islamic Human Rights Commission said "ever-increasing Islamophobia" related to the "war on terror" was to blame for the removal of the men, who were questioned by police and forced to fly back to Manchester later in the week.
A Monarch Airlines spokesman said the men attracted attention because "they were apparently acting suspiciously", although he would not say what they had done. "The flight attendants were sufficiently concerned to alert the crew, who in turn informed the security authorities at Malaga airport," he said….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1854721,00.html
|
