Flying While Muslim

AZ MUSLIMS PROTEST REMOVAL OF MUSLIM CLERICS FROM FLIGHT - TOP http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-HyPC99du
SEE ALSO:VIDEO: IMAMS PULLED OFF PLANE - TOPNBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, 11/21/06

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htmg=df5dd736f12b4b6d9d0ff662045b7797&f=00&fg=copy Nov. 21: The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Tuesday for an investigation into the behavior of airline staff and airport security in the removal of six Muslim scholars from a US Airways flight a day earlier. NBC's Pete Williams reports.---VIDEO: CAIR REP DEBATES 'FLYING WHILE MUSLIM' ON MSNBC'S 'TUCKER' - TOP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWx7d77_IPo
---CAIR-AZ CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION AFTER IMAMS DETAINED - TOPKNXV ABC 15, 11/21/06
http://g6publish.videodome.com/physorg/portal/?channel=USA+News&clipid=92544
---CAIR: SOME MUSLIMS CALL AIRPORT DETENTION BIAS - TOP Joshua Freed, Associated Press, 11/22/06
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/16069916.htm
The police report listed the incident as "Security-Other," but some saw the detention of six imams at the airport here as a case of "Flying while Muslim" - the idea that Muslims come in for extra scrutiny when they fly.The imams were removed from the flight to Phoenix on Monday night after three of them said their normal evening prayers in the terminal in Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport before boarding, said Omar Shahin, president of the North American Imams Federation, who was one of the passengers removed. The passengers were among 150 imams who attended a federation meeting in Minneapolis."It's discrimination," Shahin said, calling for a boycott of US Airways.It was just the latest incident in which passengers who were Muslim or, in some cases, just not Caucasian were removed from a flight for questioning. In August, a flight from Amsterdam to Mumbai was escorted back to the airport by F-16 fighters because a group of Indians on the plane had a large number of cell phones, notebook computers and hard drives, and refused to follow the crew's instructions."In this country, there was a time that Catholics were profiled, and they were stereotyped and discriminated (against), and Jewish people," said Dr. Shahid Athar, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, who also writes and lectures on Muslim interaction in the West. "It looks like it is our turn now."In the incident Monday, a passenger reported overhearing the imams criticize the U.S. in Iraq and speaking angrily near the gate. The men were interrogated by the FBI and the Secret Service. They had to fly a different airline out of town on Tuesday after US Airways refused to let them on any of its flights."Unfortunately, this is a growing problem of singling out Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims at airport, and it's one that we've been addressing for some time," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The group planned to file a complaint over the incident, Hooper said.Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the group has been receiving more reports of profiling. (MORE)---CAIR: 6 IMAMS REMOVED FROM FLIGHT FOR BEHAVIOR DEEMED SUSPICIOUS - TOP Libby Sander, New York Times, 11/22/06

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/us/22muslim.html
Six Muslim religious leaders were taken off a US Airways flight in Minneapolis on Monday evening and detained for several hours after some passengers and crew members complained of behavior they deemed suspicious, including prayers at the gate.The incident prompted the Council on American-Islamic Relations and officials for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Washington to call Tuesday for Congressional hearings on racial profiling and an investigation by the Justice Department and the Transportation Security Administration.Nihad Awad, executive director of the Islamic advocacy group, said this was hardly the first time Muslims had encountered problems with stereotyping by the airline. "We seem to have received more complaints against US Airways" than other carriers, Mr. Awad said in an interview. Those complaints have come from Muslim employees and passengers alike, he said.Morgan Durrant, a US Airways spokesman, said the airline was investigating the episode. But he said the crew had acted in accordance with the company's policy for removing passengers, though he declined to give specifics on the policy.The six men detained, all imams, had attended a Minneapolis conference of the North American Imams Federation. They were handcuffed by the police and led off the flight, bound for Phoenix, after reports from passengers and crew members of "unsettling" behavior, according to a police report. One passenger had slipped a note to a flight attendant that began, "6 suspicious Arabic men on plane," the report said.After being detained for five hours and questioned separately by federal agents, all six men were released, said Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.One of the six, Omar Ahmad Shahin of Phoenix, said he had been questioned for less than a half-hour. "This is the humiliation," said Dr. Shahin, 45. "They found nothing. They found we had a good relation with everybody." (MORE)---AIRLINE CHECKS CLAIM OF 'MUSLIM WHILE FLYING' DISCRIMINATION - TOP CNN, 11/21/06
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/21/passengers.removed/
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- US Airways said Tuesday it is investigating the removal of six Muslim imams who were passengers on a Monday flight heading to Phoenix, Arizona.The clerics, who had been in Minnesota for a national imams conference, were guilty of nothing more than "flying while Muslim," according to a national Muslim advocacy group.The alert was raised after the men performed their normal evening prayers in the airport terminal before boarding Flight 300.A passenger who had seen them pray passed a note expressing concern to a flight attendant, US Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader told The Associated Press.The passenger thought the imams -- who were speaking in Arabic and English -- had made anti-U.S. statements before boarding and "made similar statements while boarding," said Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.Once on board, Knocke said, the six split up into groups of two and did not sit in their assigned seats.US Airways had the imams removed from the plane, and according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, the airline denied the clerics access to another flight and did not assist them in obtaining tickets on another carrier."This discrimination should not stand," said Nihad Awad, the council's executive director. "We call on religious communities, civil rights movements and other people to stand up and speak up."He said the group was getting more reports of 'flying while Muslim' and racial profiling incidents across the country."We are concerned that crew members, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam," Awad said in an earlier press release calling for an investigation. (MORE)---CAIR-AZ: VALLEY MUSLIMS SAY PRAYER GOT THEM KICKED OFF FLIGHT - TOP Michael Kiefer, Arizona Republic, 11/22/06
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1122imams1122.html
Minutes after their flight arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, five Valley Muslim leaders announced that they had not been acting suspiciously before they were removed from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis."The crime we did?" said Omar Shahin, one of the five. "That we perform our prayer."Meanwhile, a national Islamic civil rights group asked for an investigation into the questioning of the imams in Minnesota, saying that the incident was the result of "prejudice and ignorance, not by real evidence of a threat to passenger safety." advertisementShahin is the imam, or leader, of the Arizona Cultural Academy, a mosque and Islamic religious school in Phoenix.The five men, several of whom are well-known in the Phoenix interfaith community, said that they were taken from the plane Monday because they are Muslim."I'm not asking the people to love my religion," said Marwan Sadeddin, imam at the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, "I'm asking the people to respect the Constitution of the United States that says I have the freedom of religion, the freedom of belief."Meanwhile, US Airways says it is looking into the incident."At this point, we're standing by what our employees did," said Phil Gee, a US Airways spokesman. "We're going to investigate to make sure what our employees did was proper. Certainly, they were removed for a reason."The five imams - Shahin, Sadeddin, Ahmed Shqueirat, Didwar Faja and Mahmoud Sulaiman - were in Minneapolis for a meeting of the North American Imam Federation, of which Shahin is chairman.According to Mohammed AbuHannoud, civil rights director for the Phoenix office of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, the subject of the conference was outreach to the American community. U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to Congress, attended the conference.The national Islamic civil rights group called for an investigation into the incident."CAIR is receiving more reports of 'flying while Muslim' and racial-profiling incidents from members of the Islamic community nationwide," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. "We therefore call for congressional hearings to deal with the issue of racial, religious and ethnic profiling in our nation's airports." (MORE)---CAIR: UPROAR FOLLOWS IMAMS' DETENTION - TOP 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, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11/21/06
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/826056.html
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." (MORE)---CAIR: 'FLYING WHILE MUSLIM' - TOP For crews, it's safety firstDavid Hanners and Emily Gurnon, Pioneer Press, 11/22/06

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/16071831.htm

When six imams were kicked off a Twin Cities flight and barred from another, a wave of outrage and cries of religious discrimination followed.Taken individually, the things the six men did - praying, talking about Iraq, asking for seat-belt extensions - may have passed without notice.But their behavior Monday night at Gate C9 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was enough to trigger one airline passenger to jot a two-sentence note that would get the men kicked off one flight and eventually barred from another.It also brought in the FBI and U.S. Secret Service, launched a federal investigation, prompted cries of religious discrimination, forced an airline to review its policies and spurred a call for a boycott of the nation's sixth-largest air carrier."The police came and took us off the plane in front of all the passengers in a very humiliating way," said one of the men, Omar Shahin, president of the North American Imams Federation.Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Islamic civil liberties group, said the detention of the imams was the result of prejudice and there was never a threat to passenger safety."CAIR is receiving more reports of 'flying while Muslim' and racial profiling incidents from members of the Islamic community nationwide," he said.Awad called for congressional hearings into the issue. (MORE)