In a move that should be a learning experience for aviation security,immigration and security authorities worldwide, US Airways last month agreed to an out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit filed by six imams, or Islamic religious leaders, who were arrested after being removed from a US Airways flight in Minnesota in 2006.
The six religious leaders will receive an undisclosed amount in compensation.Confidentiality clauses prevented further details from being disclosed but a statement said the case was resolved to "the satisfaction of all parties".
The Washington DC-based Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR)hailed the settlement, which has been almost totally ignored by the global travel media. Full details are available at www.flyingwhilemuslim.org.
"[It] is a clear victory for justice and civil rights over fear and the phenomenon of 'flying while Muslim' in the post-9/11 era," said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the CAIR.
Last July, US District Judge Ann Montgomery in Minnesota cleared the way for a trial by denying several motions to dismiss the case and ruling that a law passed by Congress after the incident did not grant protection from lawsuits to those sued by the imams.
The judge also ruled that the actions of the imams prior to their flight did not justify their detention. She noted that they were subjected to "extreme fear and humiliation of being falsely identified as dangerous terrorists" and said "similar behaviour by Russian Orthodox priests or Franciscan monks would likely not have elicited this response".
In an opinion piece in USA Today,CAIR's national communications director Ibrahim Hooper called for a global ban on religious and racial profiling.
He said that while the settlement should not prevent anyone from acting on legitimate security concerns,"reports based solely on anti-Muslim or antiArab bias and hysteria should not be used as the basis for a 'flying while Muslim' incident.
"Absent actual suspicious behaviour,merely offering one of the five-daily Islamic prayers in a terminal, speaking Arabic to a fellow passenger, wearing a head scarf, or 'looking Muslim' is insufficient justification to detain passengers or remove them from a flight.
"American Muslims are just as concerned about flight safety and security as citizens of other faiths. They and their families take the same flights and are subject to the same risks as other members of the travelling public. Flight safety should be based on legitimate law enforcement techniques, not on racial or religious profiling."
Mr Hooper said that in the increasingly diverse society America has become, it must seek to "prevent situations in which stereotypes or bias can create a snowball effect of escalating discrimination.
"Our nation's history has been marred by periods in which groups - whether Irish Americans, African Americans,Japanese Americans, or others - were deemed appropriate targets for discrimination. Thankfully, Americans are capable of looking beyond the prejudices of the moment to see a future of equal treatment for all."
The case, which galvanised Muslim travellers worldwide who are frequently to subjected to racial and religious profiling at airports and border checkpoints, was set to go further in a lawsuit against the Minnesota airport operator, US Airways and possibly the FBI on the grounds of improper arrest and other acts of discrimination.
The Minnesota Post noted that Congress had passed a law - and cited the Minnesota case as the motivation designed to protect people from reporting their suspicions under circumstances such as those involving the imams.
"The imams, and the way they were arrested, became for a time the symbol of the post-9/11 national nervousness about Middle Easterners on airplanes and for the allegation that you could get arrested for the 'crime" of 'flying while Muslim'," wrote commentator Eric Black.
"The nervousness was understandable, but that didn't make it constitutional....[E]ven the shock of the 9/11 attacks didn't repeal the simple rule that police cannot arrest someone unless they have probable cause to believe that the arrestees have committed a crime.
"As you review the facts of the case,ask yourself which of the 'suspicious'actions of the imams would have been suspicious if they had not been Muslims."
Imtiaz Muqbil is executive editor of Travel Impact Newswire, an e-mailed feature and analysis service focusing on the Asia-Pacific travel industry.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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