Muslim clerics barred from US flights
Imams were enroute to attend conference on Islamophobia.
WASHINGTON:
Three imams including a US-born Muslim bound for a conference on Islamophobia were kicked off US domestic flights out of security fears, clerics and an airline said on Saturday.
Two imams boarded a flight from Memphis, Tennessee to Charlotte, North Carolina on Friday only to have it return to the terminal so they could be put through “additional screening,” said a spokesman for Atlantic South Airlines (ASA), the Delta Connection airline operating the flight.
US-born imam Al-Amin Abdul-Latif of Long Island was barred from boarding an American Airlines flight from New York to Charlotte late Friday and told to return to LaGuardia airport for a morning flight Saturday, only to be refused boarding again, without explanation, his son said.
“This morning we get to the airline, and the ticket agent told my father that the airline does not want him to fly. Those were her exact words,” Abu Bakr Abdul-Latif told AFP.
Masudur Rahman, a permanent US resident from India and former Memphis imam who teaches Arabic at the University of Memphis, said he and another cleric, a US permanent resident from Egypt were pulled off ASA flight 5452 and cleared through new security checks.
“But when we went to re-enter the plane, the Delta supervisor said ‘Sorry, the pilot is not allowing you to enter,’” Rahman told AFP. Delta negotiated with the pilot, noted Rahman who said he was told that “some passengers might be uncomfortable” with their presence on the plane.
“I think they were obviously upset...but they understand what’s going on in the world and particularly in the heightened sensitivities after the death of Osama bin Laden,” Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 8th, 2011.
Three imams including a US-born Muslim bound for a conference on Islamophobia were kicked off US domestic flights out of security fears, clerics and an airline said on Saturday.
Two imams boarded a flight from Memphis, Tennessee to Charlotte, North Carolina on Friday only to have it return to the terminal so they could be put through “additional screening,” said a spokesman for Atlantic South Airlines (ASA), the Delta Connection airline operating the flight.
US-born imam Al-Amin Abdul-Latif of Long Island was barred from boarding an American Airlines flight from New York to Charlotte late Friday and told to return to LaGuardia airport for a morning flight Saturday, only to be refused boarding again, without explanation, his son said.
“This morning we get to the airline, and the ticket agent told my father that the airline does not want him to fly. Those were her exact words,” Abu Bakr Abdul-Latif told AFP.
Masudur Rahman, a permanent US resident from India and former Memphis imam who teaches Arabic at the University of Memphis, said he and another cleric, a US permanent resident from Egypt were pulled off ASA flight 5452 and cleared through new security checks.
“But when we went to re-enter the plane, the Delta supervisor said ‘Sorry, the pilot is not allowing you to enter,’” Rahman told AFP. Delta negotiated with the pilot, noted Rahman who said he was told that “some passengers might be uncomfortable” with their presence on the plane.
“I think they were obviously upset...but they understand what’s going on in the world and particularly in the heightened sensitivities after the death of Osama bin Laden,” Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 8th, 2011.