US Airways denies Imams tickets for praying at the terminal

[Jacpher]

Uproar follows imams' detention

 

The removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight from the Twin Cities set off a nationwide uproar, and the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said it will review the incident.

 

Bob Von Sternberg and Pamela Miller, Star Tribune

From now on, Omar Shahin won't be praying at the airport while waiting for a flight.

 

"This was humiliating, the worst moment of my life," Shahin said Tuesday, a day after he and five fellow Muslim imams were escorted off a US Airways jet at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

 

"To practice your faith and pray is a crime in America?" he said.

 

The incident set off a nationwide uproar, and the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said it will review the incident.

 

Bloggers and talk radio buzzed about the need to be vigilant against potential terrorists, while civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders cried foul. The national Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called for a congressional hearing about ethnic and religious profiling at airports.

 

Locally, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas and the Somali Justice Advocacy Center questioned the detention.

Bushra Khan, spokeswoman for CAIR's Arizona chapter, said, "All these men did was pray, and it was misunderstood. The bottom line is that they were Middle Eastern-looking men ... and that scares some people."

 

US Airways said that it will fully investigate the matter and that passenger safety is paramount.

 

The religious leaders were heading home after a three-day North American Imams Federation conference in Bloomington.

 

The pilot ordered the men off the flight after their praying, conversation and behavior alarmed several passengers and flight attendants.

 

The imams denied that they did or said anything that could be considered threatening. They were released without charges after being questioned for five hours by federal law enforcement officials.

 

Left behind by US Airways

 

Shahin, president of the imams' group, called for a boycott of US Airways after an agent and his supervisor, without giving a reason, refused to sell him replacement tickets Tuesday morning.

 

"I'm not going to stay silent," Shahin said. "I came to this country to enjoy justice and freedom."

 

The US Airways supervisor told Shahin that his tickets had been refunded and that he would have to go to another airline. The supervisor offered Shahin a customer service phone number.

"I want to go home. I don't want phone numbers," Shahin said. "They have no reason to refuse service to us just because of the way we look."

He bought six one-way tickets at the Northwest Airlines counter, and the men flew to Phoenix without incident.

 

'Praying very loud'

 

In a statement to police, a US Airways gate agent wrote that three of the men prayed in Arabic at the gate. "I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent said.

Said Shahin: "We were never bothering anyone, not saying anything loudly. We were just prostrating ourselves, the normal way we pray."

 

Devout Muslims pray five times a day, but practices vary among cultural groups, said Owais Bayunus, a Muslim scholar in the Twin Cities.

"Those who pray in the airport would be more conservative Muslims who stop to pray at the designated times no matter where they are," he said. "Others accept the fatwa [an opinion by an Islamic legal scholar] that it is acceptable to combine the prayers during travel."

 

Before passengers boarded, one became alarmed by an overheard discussion. "They seemed angry," he wrote in a police statement. "Mentioned 'U.S.' and 'killing Saddam.' Two men then swore slightly under their breath/mumbled. They spoke Arabic again. The gate called boarding for the flight. The men then chanted 'Allah, Allah, Allah.' "

Marwan Sadeddin, another of the imams, said, "What bothers me the most is these false statements and lies that we were shouting, 'Allah, Allah.' This never happened."

Another, Ahmad Shqeirat, said, "That is a lie. We were not talking politics. And even if we did, so what? What is suspicious about that?"

 

Once the six were seated, two in front, two in the middle and two in back, and paid visits to each other to chat, some passengers became alarmed, the police report said. One passed a note to a flight attendant citing the alleged comments about Allah and Saddam.

 

Flight attendants alerted the pilot, who called airport police and asked them to remove the men from the plane. They left "cooperatively," according to the police report.

 

A bomb-sniffing dog examined the men, their luggage and the entire airplane and found nothing. The plane left for Phoenix about three hours late after the other 141 passengers reboarded.

 

After being questioned by agents of the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration, the men were released.

 

Asad Zaman, communications director for the Muslim American Society (MAS) of Minnesota, said an Arizona MAS chapter member called him for help about 11 p.m. Monday because the six imams had not arrived and one had called his wife to say police had detained them.

 

Within 10 minutes of a Minnesota imam's call to police, the six were free, Zaman said.

"This event would be the equivalent of Roman Catholic bishops being arrested in China because they wore clerical robes and invoked Jesus Christ in prayers," Zaman said.

 

vonste@startribune.com

• 612-673-7184

pmiller@startribune.com

• 612-673-4290

 

Source

 

6 men removed from flight, questioned

 

Six passengers were removed from a Phoenix-bound US Airways flight Monday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and questioned by police, airline and airport officials said.

 

Associated Press

Last update: November 21, 2006 – 7:05 AM

 

Six passengers were removed from a Phoenix-bound US Airways flight Monday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and questioned by police, airline and airport officials said.

 

Authorities said the crew reported that the passengers were acting suspiciously.

 

One of the men said they were Muslim imams who were questioned for several hours before being released.

 

Omar Shahin of Phoenix said they were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation. Shahin said he is president of the group.

 

Shahin said three of the men stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam.

 

US Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader said the men had just boarded Flight 300 about 6:30 p.m. when someone passed a note about the men's behavior to a flight attendant, who then conferred with other crew members.

 

The men were asked to leave the plane, but they refused, so crew members called for airport police and the men were removed, Rader said.

Airport spokesman Pat Hogan said the men were questioned by airport police and Transportation Security Administration officials.

 

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said the meeting drew about 150 imams from around the country. Hooper also said that U.S. Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minneapolis, who just became the first Muslim elected to Congress, also was at the meeting.

 

TOM FORD AND ASSOCIATED PRESS

Startribune

Very humilating experience for the Imams. I heard somewhere that only 10% or so of the population actually know what Islam is really about. I also heard somewhere that a large percentage could not tell if Muslims worship monkeys or the moon.

[LayZie G.]

Nothing new, racial profiling has always been around and it would probably be around for time, maybe forever. You just have to learn to deal with it, no sense in posting every little incident about who was stopped and why, all in the name of islam and muslims. Blacks have struggled through this for decades, and muslims all over will do the same.

[Jacpher]

If your called lazy, just skip it. It ain’t for you.

 

Denying a service to Muslims is now called racial profiling? Did they update the dictionary?

[LayZie G.]

What would you call it? Arab Profiling?

 

Give it up. Bottom line, Whites are looking anything that looks, feels, breaths and carries the arab aura. In other words, if you happen to not even look like an arab but you still happen to carry common names such as Ahmed, Mohamed, Cabdi Aziiz etc, you will definitely be looked at more than once. You just gotta keep moving, because those arabs who blew themselves up spoiled it for us all.

 

PS:Last I checked, arabs were considered a race, and race is defined as being "a group of persons related by common descent or heredity", u add that to the profiling part, and you got RACIAL PROFILING SON.

[Allamagan]

Originally posted by Jimcaale:

If your called lazy, just skip it. It ain’t for you.

 

Denying a service to Muslims is now called racial profiling? Did they update the dictionary?

Call it a full assimilation!