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CAIR Bulletin – March 16, 2006
Muslim father and son removed from airplane
because flight attendant felt 'uncomfortable'
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights today asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to investigate a recent incident of racial profiling on board UA flight 6501, operated by United Express/SkyWest Airlines, and to take action against the airlines. Two Muslim men of South Asian descent were removed from the flight simply because their presence made a flight attendant uncomfortable, and despite the fact that they posed no security risk. Read: http://www.lawyerscomm.org/
On January 31, 2006, Mohammed Khan and his father, Fazal Khan, had boarded their flight from Los Angeles to Oakland and were waiting for the plane to take off. Both men wore traditional South Asian tunics and white skullcaps, and both had long beards. After the flight was delayed an hour on the runway, a customer service representative boarded the plane and told the Khans that they would have to leave the aircraft to discuss something inside the terminal. There, the representative informed the men that they could not remain on the flight because their presence made the flight attendant uncomfortable. She found them seats on a different flight that departed two hours later.
The circumstances make it abundantly clear that no security rationale existed for the Khans' removal. The airline even left the men's checked luggage on board the original flight, which took off shortly after the Khans were removed. In addition, when the Khans protested to the customer service representative that they had done nothing wrong, the representative did not deny their claim or state that their behavior was suspicious, but only repeated that the flight attendant was not comfortable with them on board. Moreover, the Khans were not questioned or searched before they boarded the second flight, and to their knowledge, no airport security official was even informed of their removal.
"We were humiliated in front of people for no reason at all," said Mohammed Khan. "Everyone who saw us taken off the flight will now think it's OK to look down on anyone who looks like us."
"Since this incident, when we leave the house to go shopping or to the hospital or even when we are driving, we worry how people will treat us because of how we look. The humiliation we felt will remain with us for a very long time," Khan added.
"Racial stereotypes must never be the basis for a decision to remove someone from an airplane," said attorney Shirin Sinnar of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. "In the months after 9/11, South Asian or Middle Eastern passengers were removed from flights numerous times based purely on prejudice. Many Americans will be surprised to realize that this kind of discrimination is still occurring." Sinnar also noted that United Air Lines was already required by the Department of Transportation to provide annual civil rights training to employees because the airline had discriminated against Arab, Middle Eastern, South Asian, or Muslim passengers after 9/11.
In addition to a full investigation of the incident, the Lawyers' Committee is asking United and SkyWest Airlines to change their policies to prevent such discrimination from occurring again, to implement renewed civil rights training for their employees, and to compensate the two men for the pain they experienced.
Raleigh News & Observer - Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Tense: Muslim students at UNC feel heat of events
By Jane Stancill
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina: Just three days after a motorist hit nine people in UNC Chapel Hill's Pit area, students gathered in the open plaza at lunchtime March 6, tempers simmering despite the chilly rain.
Call the incident terrorism, conservative students insisted at the rally. Others said that the protest would only further divide the campus and alienate Muslims. Some students picked up tiny U.S. flags but didn't feel strongly enough to join either protest.
One thing is clear: The university is struggling with issues of politics, free speech and religion.
Tension has escalated on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ever since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Mohammed Taheri-azar was a freshman then. Taheri-azar, now a 22-year-old UNC-CH graduate charged in the Pit attack, has told police that he meant to kill people to avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.
His declaration was stunning and drew national attention to Chapel Hill - again.
In Taheri-azar's second year at UNC-CH, the university landed in federal court and the national spotlight - for requiring incoming students to read a book about the Quran.
This academic year, Muslim students have complained twice that the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, treated them insensitively. The paper published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad and a column that advocated strip-searching Muslims at airport security checkpoints.
Protests and vigils followed in both cases.
Sue Estroff, a professor of social medicine, says that there has been a lot of soul-searching on the campus. Before the recent attack, another professor had posted on an electronic mailing list that she was concerned about the climate for Muslim students.
"Times are different," Estroff said. "This isn't just about speech. There is a war going on, and the stakes are higher.... It's not at all surprising to me that things blow up."
Taheri-azar is charged with driving a sport utility vehicle into the Pit at lunchtime, injuring nine people. University officials say there is no evidence that the actions were related to any past or current campus controversies.
The attack resulted in no serious injuries, but its aftermath has left open wounds. The Muslim Students Association at UNC-CH immediately issued a condemnation.
"Regardless of what his intentions prove to be, we wholeheartedly deplore this action, and trust that our fellow classmates will be able to dissociate the actions of this one disturbed individual from the beliefs of the Muslim community as a whole," the group's statement said.
Muslim students feel beleaguered, said Winston Crisp, an assistant vice chancellor for student affairs.
"I think that they're feeling like, why do they have to keep defending themselves and defending Islam whenever someone at the extreme end does something?" he said.
Last month, Muslim students held a sit-in at the offices of The Daily Tar Heel, after the paper published the Muhammad cartoon. Salma Mirza, a Muslim student from Buffalo, N.Y., who organized the sit-in, said that students felt betrayed by repeated anti-Muslim rhetoric. "It's a lot to take as a minority on campus," she said.
After the Pit attack happened, Crisp said, students rallied around one another. "By and large, the atmosphere on campus has been one of tolerance and respect and unity," he said.
At the March 6 protest, though, two sides of the "Is it terrorism?" debate faced off with dueling signs and angry words.
"It's very possible that what happened was because of one guy out of the whole community," said Kris Wampler, a senior from Charlotte who was one of the plaintiffs in the Quran lawsuit against the university in 2002. "It's also very possible there's a deeper problem with Islamic fundamentalism."
Charlie McGeehan, a freshman from Media, Pa., looked on with disdain. The rally was merely a divisive stunt by one small political group, he said.
Some say that political correctness has gone too far in Chapel Hill.
"It's hard to not be against terrorism, but for some reason, coming out against it is difficult for some on this campus," said Jillian Bandes, the columnist who was dismissed from the campus newspaper when she recommended that Muslims be strip-searched at airports…..
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137834697682&path=!localnews!education!&s=
News14.com– March 15, 2006
Muslims denounce UNC campus attack
By Heather Moore
RALEIGH, N.C. – The Muslim community spoke out Wednesday against Mohammad Taheri-azar, who claims he acted in the name of Islam when he drove into a group of students on the University of North Carolina campus earlier this month.
Taheri-azar, a 22-year-old UNC graduate, is charged with nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and nine counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury after racing through a crowded campus gathering spot in a rented Jeep Cherokee. No one was seriously injured.
Taheri-azar attempted to defend his actions in a recent letter to the Durham Herald Sun. It read, “Allah’s followers have permission to attack those who have waged war against them with eternal paradise as an expected reward.”
Members of the Islamic Association of Raleigh and the Muslim-American Society say he took excerpts from the Quran out of context and did not act in accordance with the teachings of Islam. They say the students were not involved in any type of religious warfare, but were simply innocent victims.
“It is unfortunate that some misuse religion and perpetrate violence in the name of religion as evidence by Taheri-azar’s statements and actions, which appear to be the work of a disturbed individual,” said Imran Aukhill of the Islamic Association of Raleigh.
Taheri-azar is at Central Prison in Raleigh with bond set at $5.5 million.
http://www.news14charlotte.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=115535
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