Protests over Offloading
of Imams
Washington, DC: America
can't become a country so locked by fear that those who
unfurl a prayer rug automatically become suspects, warns
the Washington Post in an editorial published last Wednesday.
And the Post is not alone in rejecting what it describes
as `a scary possibility’.
Jewish rabbis and Christian ministers joined Muslims in
Washington last week to protest the expulsion of six imams
from a US Airways flight because they prayed in public before
boarding a plane.
The rabbis and ministers watched encouragingly as a group
of Muslims prayed at the Reagan National Airport in Washington
to reject the impression that Muslim could no longer hold
group prayers at American airports. Later, Imam Omar Shahin;
Ibrahim Ramey, Director of Civil and Human Rights with the
Muslim American Society; Rev Walter E. Fauntroy of the National
Black Leadership Roundtable; Mahdi Bray, Director of the
Muslim American Society; and Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the
Shalom Center in Philadelphia staged a `pray-in’ demonstration
at the airport and demanded an apology from US Airways.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council filed a complaint of `racial
profiling’ with the US Transportation Department.
The Homeland Security Department's Office for Civil Rights
and Civil Liberties said it was also investigating the incident.
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 plane, a passenger passed
a note to a flight attendant, saying he thought their behavior
was suspicious. The men were taken off the airplane, handcuffed
and questioned. “It was the worst moment in my life,”
Imam Shahin said.
US Airways Group Inc spokeswoman Andrea Rader defended the
action. “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.
The Washington Post, however, felt that the airline and
the authorities who detained the imams had questions to
answer. “Answers to these questions might help explain
the airline and official actions, even if they do not end
up justifying those actions. Were they switching seats suspiciously?
Did the imams have round-trip or one-way tickets? Did the
men ask for seat-belt extenders, and if so did they give
any reason?”
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