Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Social profiling

dlish · 01-02-2009, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Nine Muslims, including three children, have been ordered off a domestic US flight after two other passengers heard them making what they thought were suspicious remarks about security.

The group, eight of whom are US citizens, was in Washington on Thursday afternoon on an AirTran flight bound for Orlando, Florida where they were to attend a religious retreat, and were eventually cleared for travel by the FBI, according to the Washington Post.

The airline and FBI characterised the incident as a misunderstanding, but AirTran reportedly refused to rebook the passengers, who paid for seats on another carrier.

Kashif Irfan, 34, said his younger brother Atif and his brother's wife "were remarking about safety" when they were overheard.

"My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security," he told the Post. "The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window."

Irfan, who was also travelling with his wife, a sister-in-law, a friend and Irfan's three sons ages seven, four, and two, said action was taken against his party because of the way they looked.

All were traditionally Muslim in appearance, with the men sporting beards and the women in headscarves.

An airline spokesman, Tad Hutcheson, defended AirTran's handling of the situation.

"At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane," he was quoted as saying.

"Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance," Hutcheson added. "It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."

The pilot postponed the flight, and federal officials ordered all 104 passengers off the plane to re-screen them and their luggage before allowing the flight to go to Orlando, two hours late and without the nine passengers.

Ellen Howe, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, said the pilot acted appropriately.

"It was an ordeal," said Abdur Razack Aziz, one of the detained.

"Nothing came out of it. It was paranoid people. It was very sad."

this issue is important to me. i find myself travelling more and more, especially in the middle east, and it annoys me that normal everyday people cannot go about their everyday lives without the risk of having to put up with being pulled off flights because of the religion, appearance or political preferences.

i recall the guy wearing the anti bush t-shirt that got pullled off the flight last year, this muslim family amonst probably thousands every year.

it annoys me, because as a westerner, as an arab and as a muslim, i may be subjected to the same treatment metered out to this family. as some of you may recall, i was in yemen a few weeks ago. i decided to go in traditional garb for the first time, and i had no problem. i may well be targetting for 'social profiling' because i 'fit the bill'. a westerner with an australian passport who is able to acess many countries without visas, who so happens to have an arab name and shares the same religion as a few nutjobs. great just great.

what do you guys think? have you been socially profiled before?

your thoughts