Flying While Muslim
9/11 When Will It End?
Have you or someone you know been harassed or intimidated by so-called "security" measures? Maybe while traveling? Or perhaps in some government building? What about "random" checks while on the road?
How do you feel when traveling or going out in public places as a Muslim?
Do you believe there was more to the story than just "random checks"?
Do you feel there is some racial profiling going on? Or maybe religious profiling? Or is this really just a series of coincidences?
At the end of this article you can add your comments and concerns for all to see - and if the story is found to be accurate, we may ask Guide US TV to put your story on the air. So be careful to be accurate in your reportings.
At airports or on planes, the racial profiling of a person who is or who appears to be a Muslim. Also: FWM.
Example Citations: On Sept. 26, 2002, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was returning to Montreal from Tunisia when he was taken into custody at New York's Kennedy Airport. Shackled and interrogated by INS, FBI and other agencies for several days, Arar repeatedly asked for an
attorney, but was refused one. ...
Arar never was charged with a crime. But his real offense might have been simply FWM -- flying while Muslim. --Lawrence Swaim, "Laws need to change," The Argus (Fremont, CA), February 4, 2004
Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society said he used to worry about racial profiling as a driver who is black.
"Now I have to be concerned about flying while Muslim," he said. --Stephanie Erickson, "Concerned about civil rights," Orlando Sentinel, December 15, 200
Notes: This phrase is a play on "driving while black" (or DWB), having a car pulled over (by a police officer) for no other reason than the driver
is black. This in turn was a riff on "driving while intoxicated" (DWI), an actual offense. Some phrases similar to flying while Muslim are "flying while Arab" and "flying while brown" .
Earliest Citation:
"I've faced both kinds of profiling: driving while black and flying while Muslim," said the 28-year-old student. "If we get to the point where we begin curbing our civil liberties and the rights of certain
people, I think the terrorists have won." -- Joyce Purnick, "Last Week, Profiling Was Wrong," The New York
Times, September 15, 2001
Imagine it is 5 a.m. and you’ve landed in New York after a 12-hour overseas flight. Standing in the line for U.S. citizens, you wait as a border agent asks passengers ahead a few cursory questions, then waves them through. Your family is instead ushered into a separate room for more than an hour of searching and questioning.
This was the welcome that Hassan Shibly, traveling with his wife and infant son, said they received in August 2010, when they returned to the United States from Jordan, after traveling to Mecca.
“Are you part of any Islamic tribe? Have you ever studied Islam full time? How many gods do you believe in?” “How many prophets do you believe in?” the agent at New York’s JFK Airport asked, according to Shibly, 24, a Syrian-born Muslim American. He said the agent searched his luggage, pulling out his Quran and a hand-held digital prayer counter.
“At the end — I guess (the agent) was trying to be nice — he said, ‘Sorry, I hope you understand we just have to make sure nothing gets blown up,’” said Shibly, a law school graduate who grew up in Buffalo.
A decade after terrorists used airplanes to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Muslim American travelers say they still pay the price for terror attacks carried out by terrorists, that have nothing to do with real Islam.
At airports, ports and land crossings, many contend, Muslims are repeatedly singled out for special screening and intrusive questioning about their religious beliefs. Some Muslims report they have been marooned overseas, and even barred from flights returning back to the United States.
‘Stories come pouring out'
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Government records show that Hassan Shibly of Tampa, Fla., has been pulled aside at airports for secondary screening at least 20 times since 2004. |
“Whenever a group of Muslims sit together … stories come pouring out,” said real estate agent Jeff Siddique, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen who has lived in Seattle for 35 years. “It’s story after story after story.”
That is supported by a survey released in August by the Pew Research Center, in which 36 percent of Muslim Americans who traveled by air in the last year said they had been singled out for special screening. The Transportation Security Administration does not keep detailed records, but a spokesman said that less than 3 percent of passengers receive a pat down, a primary form of secondary screening.
"I have been singled out more than once in this year alone" says Yusuf Estes, director of Guide US TV, in Washington, D.C. "and I know it is my clothes more than anything else". He also says
But while the U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination according to religion, there is no way to determine whether the data supports the anecdotal evidence.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security releases only scant information on its anti-terrorism programs, including passenger screening, for security reasons. It has a clearly stated policy against racial and ethnic profiling, though it does encourage security personnel — both in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which handles U.S. border entries, and in the TSA, which handles pre-flight screening — to focus on passengers’ connections to “countries associated with significant terrorist activity.”
The Justice Department, which sets the policy for Homeland Security, forbids racial and ethnic profiling. But if personnel are acting on specific intelligence, a certain group may be singled out. Justice Department guidance issued in 2003 gives this example:
“U.S. intelligence sources report that Middle Eastern terrorists are planning to use commercial jetliners as weapons by hijacking them at an airport in California during the next week. Before allowing men appearing to be of Middle Eastern origin to board commercial airplanes in California airports during the next week, (TSA and other agencies) may subject them to heightened scrutiny.”
But several civil rights groups say growing evidence points to targeting Muslims — and people who appear to be Muslim — without credible evidence of a crime or intent to commit one. In an array of legal cases, they are challenging the anti-terrorism bureaucracy to articulate its policy.
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More on Islam in America
Among the questions they want answered: Is there a focus on Muslim travelers encoded in policy or encouraged by training? How do travelers end up on security watch lists, and is there any way to get off them? Does the U.S. government have the right to bar U.S. citizens from flying back into the country?
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