MINNEAPOLIS - Six Islamic leaders who were removed from a US Airways flight in November are suing the airline for discrimination.
The imams were returning from a religious conference in November when they were taken off a plane in Minneapolis, handcuffed and questioned. They had prayed on their prayer rugs in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport before the flight, and after they boarded, a passenger passed a note to a flight attendant.
When the men returned to the airport the next day, they said, the airline refunded their fare but refused to sell them another ticket.
US Airways Group Inc. has said prayer was never the issue. A passenger reported overhearing anti-U.S. statements, and the men got up and moved around the airplane, the airline said.
The men said they had done nothing that should have been suspicious.
US Airways released a statement saying it hadn’t seen the lawsuit, filed Monday, but that its initial position had not changed: that its employees “acted appropriately, and we continue to back the actions of our crew and ground employees in this case.”
Imam Omar Shahin, one of the detained imams and the president of the North American Imams Federation, declined to comment ahead of a news conference planned later Tuesday in Washington.
The incident prompted the Muslim Public Affairs Council to complain to the Transportation Department, and the Homeland Security Department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said it would investigate. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_re_us/passengers_removed
hmmmm maybe they needed accent training. or the rednecks needed errr hearing aids..
remember the dude with the benis bumb who was stopped at the airport.. :)
hmmmm maybe they needed accent training. or the rednecks needed errr hearing aids..
remember the dude with the benis bumb who was stopped at the airport.. :)
OG, if you look at the issue its not just that they were taken off flights which was idiotic to begin with but then the airline refused to fly them even after the feds cleared em once again.
Now when I fly, I am either flying for work and have meetings with clients, or flyign for family events, or for the precious little vacation I get. the first 2 are time sensitive, the last one oh well I lose out some time, but... you pull me off a flight for whatever moronic reaon, fine, but then get me on the next flight or get me on a different airline's next flight.
yeah this will go all the way, USair does not have to settle with moooozlimz in such an atmosphere.
you fight with your voices, and your dollars. there is no other way.
hey man, i have had to deal wit this type of stuff all my life, whether it was saudis looking at a 'rafiq' and spilling hsi suitcase out to see if he had drugs since he was coming from pakistan, or Pakistani passport control looking at my passport suspiciously and have five jokers stand around and talk about it for an hour about whether or not it was a counterfeit.
used to seeing ignorant jackasses being what they are..ignorant
OG, if you look at the issue its not just that they were taken off flights which was idiotic to begin with but then the airline refused to fly them even after the feds cleared em once again.
But did they clear them of being trouble-making jerks? I don't know pretend to know the details, but if they *did *instigate trouble (baiting as suggested by OG), then maybe US Airways doesn't want them on their planes and I wouldn't blame them.
As I remember the description of the incident, many of these guys requested seat belt extenders, usually used by the obese, even though none of them are obese. Now, if that is true, why would they do that? Certainly nothing wrong with requesting the extenders, but it is something odd that aircraft employees are trained to take note of now.