Imams Stage Airport 'Pray-In' As Protest

http://www.wral.com/apnationalnews/10403777/detail.html

WASHINGTON -- Imams, ministers and a rabbi staged a "pray-in" demonstration Monday at Reagan Washington National Airport and demanded an apology from US Airways for barring six Muslims from a Minneapolis to Phoenix flight last week.

The religious leaders called for an end to racial profiling, saying it was unacceptable in America.

"These things are troubling to us," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. "Driving while black, flying while Muslim, traveling with a Torah or getting with Jesus."

Imam Omar Shahin, one of the six imams detained last Monday at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said they hadn't done anything suspicious.

The imams, who were returning from a religious conference, had prayed on their prayer rugs in the airport before the flight. After they boarded the flight, a passenger, who was alarmed by their activity, passed a note to a flight attendant. The men were taken off the airplane, handcuffed and questioned.

"It was the worst moment in my life," Shahin said.

US Airways Group Inc. spokeswoman Andrea Rader said prayer was never the issue.

"Apparently, as they were boarding, one passenger overheard them saying what they thought were anti-U.S. statements," Rader said.

She also said the men got up and moved around the airplane, forcing the flight crew to consult with the airline about whether they might pose a security risk. Local law enforcement and the FBI thought they did, she said.

"We're sorry the imams had a difficult time, but we do think the crews have to make these calls and we think they made the right one," she said. US Airways plans to meet with the imams this week, Rader said.

On Monday, Shahin and a handful of other Muslims bowed down on rugs and prayed in Terminal A near the US Airways ticket counter. Jewish and Christian clergy also said prayers.

After the prayer session, Shahin and other religious leaders boarded a US Airways flight to demonstrate their determination to continue praying and flying.

Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP national office, called on Congress to pass legislation that would end racial profiling. The bill is necessary because airlines are unclear how to deal with racial and ethnic profiling, he said.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, four airlines accused of breaking federal anti-discrimination laws settled with the government. Transportation Department investigations found the airlines had unlawfully removed passengers because of their perceived ethnic or religious backgrounds.

Though the air carriers _ American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines _ admitted no wrongdoing, they agreed to carry out civil rights training for their employees.

The Homeland Security Department's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said last week that it was investigating the US Airways incident.

Although I don't truly believe that EVERY Muslim out there is a terrorist, I think that we as a nation have a right to detain whoever we want t on our soil if we feel threatened. The sad fact is that Muslims were the ones who carried out the 9-11 attacks. Muslims are the ones who carry out most of the religious violence in the world. We are still hurting from the Muslim attack on our soil in 2001. As for racial profiling, I think stopping it would be a huge hurdle to our national security. Don't forget what Bin Ladens cronies once said: "We will use your Democracy to destroy your democracy." They want to use our laws to cripple us. I wish we could have better relations with Islam, but history shows us that Western Civilization and Islam differ in dangerous ways that all the tolerance in the world can't fix.

I guess unless your seen holding the bomb in your hands no questions should be asked. I mean really we should take a chance with a plane full of peoples lives rather than have a few feel they have been profiled!

Or maybe if anyone appears suspicious we should have someone from the ACLU or Civil Liberties have to get on the plane with them!!!

Its a sad day when Americans can be arrested in their own country just because someone feels threatened. The idea of arrest just on some official's whim is an act of tyranny not of a democratic republic of a free people. The arrest and holding of people without basis in law was one reason why the thirteen colonies revolted against Britain.

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quote="artclam"]Its a sad day when Americans can be arrested in their own country just because someone feels threatened. The idea of arrest just on some official's whim is an act of tyranny not of a democratic republic of a free people. The arrest and holding of people without basis in law was one reason why the thirteen colonies revolted against Britain.

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THAT IS SO TRUE. IF THESE PEOPLE PASS THROUGH AIR PORT INSPECTIONS AND WAS ALLOWED ON THE PLANE, THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEFT ALONE.
JUST BECAUSE 9/11 WAS CARRIED OUT BY MUSLIMS IS NO REASON WE SHOULD STERO-TYPE ALL MUSLIMS WHO PRAY OR WEAR MUSLIM DRESS.
A SAD DAY INDEED, BUT WE STERO-TYPE A LOT OF PEOPLE.

http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/pri ... rticle=158

WHAT CAN I DO TO MAKE YOUR FLIGHT MORE UNCOMFORTABLE?
by Ann Coulter
November 22, 2006

Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.

Witnesses said the imams stood to do their evening prayers in the terminal before boarding, chanting "Allah, Allah, Allah" — coincidentally, the last words heard by hundreds of airline passengers on 9/11 before they died.

Witnesses also said that the imams were talking about Saddam Hussein, and denouncing America and the war in Iraq. About the only scary preflight ritual the imams didn't perform was the signing of last wills and testaments.

After boarding, the imams did not sit together and some asked for seat belt extensions, although none were morbidly obese. Three of the men had one-way tickets and no checked baggage.

Also they were Muslims.

The idea that a Muslim boycott against US Airways would hurt the airline proves that Arabs are utterly tone-deaf. This is roughly the equivalent of Cindy Sheehan taking a vow of silence. How can we hope to deal with people with no sense of irony? The next thing you know, New York City cab drivers will be threatening to bathe.

Come to think of it, the whole affair may have been a madcap advertising scheme cooked up by US Airways.

It worked with me. US Airways is my official airline now. Northwest, which eventually flew the Allah-spouting Muslims to their destinations, is off my list. You want to really hurt a U.S. air carrier's business? Have Muslims announce that it's their favorite airline.

The clerics had been attending an imam conference in Minneapolis (imam conference slogan: "What Happens in Minneapolis — Actually, Nothing Happened in Minneapolis"). But instead of investigating the conference, the government is now investigating my favorite airline.

What threat could Muslims flying from Minnesota to Arizona be?

Three of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 received their flight training in Arizona. Long before the attacks, an FBI agent in Phoenix found it curious that so many Arabs were enrolled in flight school. But the FBI rebuffed his request for an investigation on the grounds that his suspicions were based on the same invidious racial profiling that has brought US Airways under investigation and into my good graces.

Lynne Stewart's client, the Blind Sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman, is serving life in prison in a maximum security lock-up in Minnesota. One of the six imams removed from the US Airways plane was blind, so Lynne Stewart was the one missing clue that would have sent all the passengers screaming from the plane.

Wholly apart from the issue of terrorism, don't we have a seller's market for new immigrants? How does a blind Muslim get to the top of the visa list? Is there a shortage of blind, fanatical clerics in this country that I haven't noticed? Couldn't we get some Burmese with leprosy instead? A 4-year-old could do a better job choosing visa applicants than the U.S. Department of Immigration.

One of the stunt-imams in US Airways' advertising scheme, Omar Shahin, complained about being removed from the plane, saying: "Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible."

Yes, especially when there was a whole conference of them! Six out of 150 is called "poor law enforcement." How did the other 144 "scholars" get off so easy?

Shahin's own "scholarship" consisted of continuing to deny Muslims were behind 9/11 nearly two months after the attacks. On Nov. 4, 2001, The Arizona Republic cited Shahin's "skepticism that Muslims or bin Laden carried out attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon." Shahin complained that the government was "focusing on the Arabs, the Muslims. And all the evidence shows that the Muslims are not involved in this terrorist act."

In case your memory of that time is hazy, within three days of the attack, the Justice Department had released the names of all 19 hijackers — names like Majed Moqed, Ahmed Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi and Ahmed Alnami. The government had excluded all but 19 passengers as possible hijackers based on extensive interviews with friends and family of nearly every passenger on all four flights. Some of the hijackers' seat numbers had been called in by flight attendants on the planes.

By early October, bin Laden had produced a videotape claiming credit for the attacks. And by Nov. 4, 2001, The New York Times had run well over 100 articles on the connections between bin Laden and the hijackers — even more detailed and sinister than the Times' flowcharts on neoconservatives!

Also, if I remember correctly, al-Qaida had taken out full-page ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter thanking their agents for the attacks.

But now, on the eve of the busiest travel day in America, these "scholars" have ginned up America's PC victim machinery to intimidate airlines and passengers from noticing six imams chanting "Allah" before boarding a commercial jet.

Things won't change into the real Americans in this country stand up and put an end to this nonsense. Americans need to stand up and say I'm not getting on that plane with those thugs, it's either they leave or I leave. If I was there I wouldn't want those thugs on the same plane with me. Seriously I wouldn't want that going on while I'm flying for a second. This nonsense is exactly why I haven't flown in 3 years. I'm not going to have my rights trampled on while these Islamics continue to get away with murder and then cry about their civil rights when common sense finally prevails and someone takes action.

This is America. We have a right to defend ourselves. If you don't like it then leave. Go back to whatever Crapistan you came from and you can act the fool all you want. Civil rights my arse. Civil rights doesn't mean you go acting the fool either.