Fly the not-so-friendly skies

Is this where we’re headed as a nation? Are Middle Easterners going to become unwelcome on our airlines and in our streets? Are we going to become a xenophobic nation? Will the terrorists win after all, by making us become less free in order to “preserve” our freedoms? does that make sense to anyone?

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.

A passenger raised concerns about the imams — three of whom said their normal evening prayers in the airport terminal before boarding the Phoenix-bound plane, according to one — through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways.

“We are concerned that crew-members, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam,” Nihad Awad, the council’s executive director, said in a news release.

The six were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Omar Shahin of Phoenix, president of the group.

“They took us off the plane, humiliated us in a very disrespectful way,” Shahin said after the incident.

Shahin said Tuesday that three members of the group prayed in the terminal before the six boarded the plane. They entered individually, except for one member who is blind and needed to be guided, Shahin said. Once on the plane, the six did not sit together, he said.

The six were among passengers who boarded Flight 300, bound for Phoenix, around 6:30 p.m. Monday, airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.

Police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused, Rader said.

Shahin said no one asked the six to leave until police arrived, when the group complied.

“Unfortunately, this is a growing problem of singling out Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims at airports, and it’s one that we’ve been addressing for some time,” council spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.

US Airways issued a statement Tuesday saying the airline was debriefing crew-members and ground personnel and working with law enforcement officials to determine the facts surrounding the incident.

“We are always concerned when passengers are inconvenienced and especially concerned when a situation occurs that causes customers to feel their dignity was compromised,” the airline statement said. “We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind and will continue to exhaust our internal investigation until we know the facts of this case and can provide answers for the employees and customers involved in this incident.”

Source

U.S. Airlines may be in the spotlight over this particular incident, but we as a nation are also at a crossroads. Our history and reputation as a melting pot and welcoming harbor for the rest of the world is being threatened. We are going to have to decide; do we want to go forth into the 21st century according to our legacy as a free nation, or will we allow fear to and intolerance to control our destiny?

[tags]Muslim, imams, U.S.Airlines, intolerance[/tags]