Flying Imams controversy
Encyclopedia
On November 20, 2006, 6:30pm, six Muslim
imam
s were removed from US Airways
Flight 300 to Phoenix
, Arizona
, at Minneapolis airport
, because several passengers and crew members became alarmed by what they felt was suspicious behavior. The airport police
and Federal Air Marshal
agreed the circumstances were suspicious enough to warrant asking the men to leave the airplane. The airline has stated that the captain delayed takeoff and called airport security
workers to ask the imams to leave the plane; the men refused, and that the captain then called police. The plane left without the imams on board about three hours later. The imams were detained, questioned, and then released.
The imams, along with the Muslim American Society
and the Council on American-Islamic Relations
, have brought high-profile complaints and demonstrations against the airline, saying they were removed from the airplane solely due to religious discrimination. Investigations by the airline and police reported that the airline and ground crews responded to security concerns properly in removing the men from the plane.
On July 24, 2009, U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery allowed a discrimination lawsuit filed by the imams to proceed, saying, "The right not to be arrested in the absence of probable cause is clearly established and, based on the allegations ... no reasonable officer could have believed that the arrest of the Plaintiffs was proper."
, Ahmad al-Shqeirat (also known as Amad Tafish Shqeirat), and Mahmoud Sulaiman. Shahin had formerly been quoted in the press after the September 11 attacks in 2001, when he expressed doubt that any sincere Muslims had responsibility for the 9/11 hijackings, since, according to him, over 1,200 Muslims died in the World Trade Center attack.
Ibrahim lives and works in Bakersfield, California
, and the other five live and work in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
Shahin denied some of these observations in press reports (see "conflicting accounts" below).
of the airline, and said, "I'm not going to stay silent... I came to this country to enjoy justice and freedom". He has said it is incorrect that any of the men had one-way tickets, and that he had alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation
to the conference in order to prevent this kind of incident from occurring.
On November 27, Shahin and others, including Mahdi Bray
(executive director of the Muslim American Society
Freedom Foundation), Rabbi
Arthur Waskow
(of the Shalom Center of Philadelphia), Reverend Graylan Hagler
(of the United Church of Christ
), and Hillary Shelton (director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
-Washington National Office) held a "pray-in" consisting of a press statement, public prayer, and flight departure at a US Airways ticket counter at Reagan National Airport
.
Another protest, organized by the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, took place on December 1, 2006, in front of US Airways headquarters. The spokesman for the group said: "We want to tell US Airways that second-class citizenship is not an option." Other speakers at the gathering included a Jewish leader, a Catholic
cleric, and a Presbyterian
pastor who told the crowd that the "Imams did nothing to merit their exclusion from the flight". A spokesman for the Muslim American Society said that several of the affected imams did not attend the gathering because they are shy about publicity, and had been humiliated.
One of the imams, al-Shqeirat, spiritual leader of the Islamic Community Center of Tempe
, said in an interview that the imams were likely to file a discrimination lawsuit against US Airways, saying that "it was handled in an unprofessional way, and the decision (to remove them from the plane) was made by unprofessional people."
Muslim Congressman-elect Keith Ellison
, who gave a talk on "Imams and Politics"" at the meeting from which the flying imams were returning home, attempted to organize a meeting between US Airways executives, the Metropolitan Airports Commission
, and other legislators and community members to discuss the incident.
Investigations by the airline, the Air Carrier Security Committee of the Air Line Pilots Association, and the Department of Homeland Security supported the actions of the airline and found no evidence that the men were removed from the airline due to religious discrimination because they were "merely praying," but rather for security reasons. A US Airways spokesperson said, "We've done what we typically do in a situation where there is a removal or some kind of customer service at issue.... We talked with crew members and passengers and those on the ground.... We found out the facts are substantially the same, and the imams were detained because of the concerns crew members had based on the behavior they observed, and from reports by the customers.... We're looking at it as a security issue and as a customer-service issue and where we might need to do outreach." A meeting between the six imams and the airline as part of the investigation was canceled at the imam's request.
The imams retained the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) as their legal counsel. Nihad Awad
, executive director of CAIR, sent a letter to the airline seeking a settlement agreement and said, "otherwise, the group is prepared to go to court.” Awad told CNN
, “This is very important. Otherwise we have no guarantees such incidents with US Airways and other airlines would not happen again.” No information about the amount of damages sought was given.
On October 27, 2009, the "flying imams" and the air carrier settled out of court for an unknown amount.
On March 12, 2007, the imams' lawyer, Omar Mohammedi, filed a lawsuit on their behalf for unspecified damages, citing "fear, depression
, mental pain and financial injury" on the part of the imams. The lawsuit targeted US Airways and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, along with several unnamed passengers on the flight, who had reported on the imams' behavior to the flight crew, referred to as "John Doe
s" in the lawsuit. The decision to include passengers among the targets of the lawsuit was a controversial one, with some legal experts saying it could have a "chilling effect" on airline security. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, filed a brief on behalf of the passengers, and called this aspect of the lawsuit "legal terrorism".
As a result of the lawsuit, on March 22, 2007, U.S. Representative Steve Pearce
introduced the "Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act of 2007" into the United States Congress
, a bill that would have outlawed the suing of airline passengers who report on suspicious activity. On March 27, the bill was scrapped, and the wording instead placed into the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007, through an amendment sponsored by Representative Peter T. King
. At the same time, the imams amended their lawsuit to sue only those "John Does" who had acted "with the intent to discriminate". On July 19, this portion was removed from the bill when the bill's final wording was drafted by a House and Senate conference committee. The Associated Press
reported, however, that in late July 2007 "lawmakers in Congress reached a deal on a homeland security bill to include language, crafted in response to the imams case, that would give immunity from lawsuits to people who report suspicious behavior. The bill passed the House and Senate."
On August 1, 2007, the imams' attorney Frederick Goetz announced a motion to amend the complaint to include the names of the individuals responsible for the imams' removal had been entered. The list of names included employees of the airline and police officers, but not passengers. Goetz said "We've identified the people we think are responsible", and said that their amending the complaint had "absolutely nothing to do" with the bill in Congress.
The police report shows the imams sitting in seats 1B, 9C, 9D, 21B, 25D, and 25E. Regarding the claim that the imams did not sit in their assigned seats, Shahin said that only one imam, Sadeddin, switched seats. Sadeddin, who is blind and claimed to need assistance, convinced a coach passenger to exchange seats so that he could sit next to Sulaiman in Row 9. Explaining his seat in first class, Shahin said that he is a frequent flyer and had received an Elite Member upgrade to first class.
US Airways has not published the seat assignments of the imams, so their actual seat assignments are unknown.
Conflicting accounts about the use of handcuffs put that aspect of the controversy into question. On November 21, 2006, Shahin told the Associated Press, "Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible." Amy Goodman
reports a similar statement made on November 29. However, on December 1 The Washington Times
stated: "Mr. Shahin says they were not led off the plane in handcuffs, as reported, nor were they kept in handcuffs during their five-hour detention, and they were not harassed by dogs." However, a Washington Times editorial on December 2 claimed that Shahin had stated that the imams were already handcuffed when they were taken off the plane. To add to the confusion, a passenger told a group of news reporters a few hours later that "apparently they [the imams] were all in handcuffs by the end" of their time on the airplane, though it appears that she did not observe this directly.
The Washington Times reported that, according to Shahin, the US Airways refused to sell the imams a plane ticket, despite the intervention of an FBI
agent who tried to persuade the airline in favor of the imams. FBI spokesman Paul McCabe disputes that an agent talked to US Airways on behalf of the imams.
and CAIR
argued that rather than doing anything suspicious, all the men did was pray, and that the removal from the plane represented religious profiling. CAIR's Arizona
chapter spokesperson said that "All these men did was pray, and it was misunderstood. The bottom line is that they were Middle Eastern-looking men ... and that scares some people," and, "We are concerned that crewmembers, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam."
questioned whether the imams were "victims or provocateurs
", and suggested that it is possible the incident was planned in advance to gain publicity for planned congressional legislation against profiling. The Muslim American Society
also backed this legislation expected to be introduced by Representative John Conyers
of Detroit. Denouncing "the provocative agenda of these imams," Debra Burlingame opined that "it is nothing short of obscene that these six religious leaders (…) chose to turn that airport into a stage and that airplane into a prop in the service of their need for grievance theater."
A former federal air marshal
expressed the fear that the situation "will make crews and passengers in the future second-guess reporting these events, thus compromising the aircraft's security out of fear of being labeled a dogmatist or a bigot, or being sued," and that "Instilling politically correct fears into the minds of airline passengers is nothing less than psychological terrorism."
Steven Emerson
accused the Islamic Center of Tucson, a mosque where Shahin served as president, of having "an extensive history of terror links."
Critics also noted Shahin's prior involvement with a similar case. Two Arizona college students and members of Shahin's mosque, Muhammed al-Qudhaieen and Hamdan al-Shalawi, were removed from an America West flight after making two attempts to open the cockpit
. According to the 9/11 Commission Report
, the FBI suspected this was a dry run for the 9/11 hijackings. The students filed racial-profiling lawsuits against America West, now part of US Airways
, with Shahin as their defense attorney
After the out-of-court settlement was announced in 2009, a USA Today
editorial called the imams' lawsuit "troubling", and stated that the lawsuit's conclusion could lead "others to act out in hopes of cashing in", and might prevent "passengers from speaking up, or airline crews from acting, when they have reasonable suspicions."
host Jerry Klein's radio show. During the show Mr. Klein purposely pretended to support forcing American Muslims to wear "identifying markers" such as armbands or tattoos (as Nazi Germany
did to Jews before and during World War II
) to provoke listener reactions (see Jerry Klein’s 2006 Islamophobia Radio Experiment).
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...
s were removed from US Airways
US Airways
US Airways, Inc. is a major airline based in the U.S. city of Tempe, Arizona. The airline is an operating unit of US Airways Group and is the sixth largest airline by traffic and eighth largest by market value in the country....
Flight 300 to Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, at Minneapolis airport
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport is the largest and busiest airport in the five-state upper Midwest region of Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.-Overview:...
, because several passengers and crew members became alarmed by what they felt was suspicious behavior. The airport police
Airport police
Airport Police units are a security police agency assigned to perform law enforcement functions at airports. In some cases, they are branches of larger general purposes agencies. Other variations include dedicated agencies, combined police/fire agencies and even military units...
and Federal Air Marshal
Federal Air Marshal Service
The Federal Air Marshal Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the supervision of the Transportation Security Administration of the United States Department of Homeland Security...
agreed the circumstances were suspicious enough to warrant asking the men to leave the airplane. The airline has stated that the captain delayed takeoff and called airport security
Airport security
Airport security refers to the techniques and methods used in protecting airports and aircraft from crime.Large numbers of people pass through airports. This presents potential targets for terrorism and other forms of crime due to the number of people located in a particular location...
workers to ask the imams to leave the plane; the men refused, and that the captain then called police. The plane left without the imams on board about three hours later. The imams were detained, questioned, and then released.
The imams, along with the Muslim American Society
Muslim American Society
The Muslim American Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 that describes itself as an Islamic revival and reform movement....
and the Council on American-Islamic Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...
, have brought high-profile complaints and demonstrations against the airline, saying they were removed from the airplane solely due to religious discrimination. Investigations by the airline and police reported that the airline and ground crews responded to security concerns properly in removing the men from the plane.
On July 24, 2009, U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery allowed a discrimination lawsuit filed by the imams to proceed, saying, "The right not to be arrested in the absence of probable cause is clearly established and, based on the allegations ... no reasonable officer could have believed that the arrest of the Plaintiffs was proper."
Identities
The six imams were Didmar Faja, Mohamed Said Mitwaly Ibrahim, Marwan Sadeddin, Omar ShahinOmar Shahin
Sheikh Omar Shahin is a Jordanian native, living in the United States. He came to the United States in 1995, and became a U.S. citizen in 2003. He was Imam at the Islamic Center of Tucson in Arizona from 2000 until 2003, when he joined the board of directors and executive committee of the North...
, Ahmad al-Shqeirat (also known as Amad Tafish Shqeirat), and Mahmoud Sulaiman. Shahin had formerly been quoted in the press after the September 11 attacks in 2001, when he expressed doubt that any sincere Muslims had responsibility for the 9/11 hijackings, since, according to him, over 1,200 Muslims died in the World Trade Center attack.
Ibrahim lives and works in Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....
, and the other five live and work in the Phoenix, Arizona area.
Suspicious behavior
According to some passengers and flight staff, a number of whom didn't identify themselves, the suspicious behavior of the imams included the following:.- The imams refused to sit in their assigned seats. Instead, it is claimed that they fanned out in the cabin, sitting in pairs close to the front, middle, and rear exit rowExit rowAn exit row is a row of seats on board a commercial airliner that is next to an emergency exit. Exit rows may be next to overwing exits or full-sized exit doors. Passengers seated in exit rows may be required to assist crew members in the event of an emergency evacuation...
s. - Shahin and the two imams seated in Coach Row 9 requested seatbelt extensions (a strap with large metal buckles normally used by obeseObesityObesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems...
individuals to lengthen their seatbelts), even though flight staff say none seemed to need it. They then placed the extensions on the cabin floor in front of them, instead of attaching them to their seatbelts. - Three of the imams traveled without any checked baggageLuggageBaggage is any number of bags, cases and containers which hold a traveller's articles during transit.Luggage is more or less the same concept as "baggage", but is normally used in relation to the personal luggage of a specific person or persons Baggage is any number of bags, cases and containers...
, and on one-way tickets. - According to a nearby passenger who spoke ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, the two imams sitting in the back of the plane, while speaking to each other in Arabic, mentioned Osama bin LadenOsama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
and condemned AmericaUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
for "killing SaddamSaddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
".
Shahin denied some of these observations in press reports (see "conflicting accounts" below).
Aftermath
The day following the incident, Shahin, the spokesperson for the group, spoke to the press that had gathered when he returned to a US Airways ticket counter to buy new tickets for the group. He told media that the incident was "humiliating, the worst moment of my life," and asked, "To practice your faith and pray is a crime in America?" When US Airways would not issue him and the other imams new tickets he called for a boycottBoycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
of the airline, and said, "I'm not going to stay silent... I came to this country to enjoy justice and freedom". He has said it is incorrect that any of the men had one-way tickets, and that he had alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
to the conference in order to prevent this kind of incident from occurring.
On November 27, Shahin and others, including Mahdi Bray
Mahdi Bray
Wright Mahdi Bray , a Black American convert to Islam, is a civil and human rights activist who serves as Executive Director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation based in Washington, DC...
(executive director of the Muslim American Society
Muslim American Society
The Muslim American Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 that describes itself as an Islamic revival and reform movement....
Freedom Foundation), Rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
Arthur Waskow
Arthur Waskow
Arthur Ocean Waskow, born Arthur I. Waskow, is an American author, political activist, and rabbi associated with the Jewish Renewal movement.-Education and early career:...
(of the Shalom Center of Philadelphia), Reverend Graylan Hagler
Graylan Hagler
Rev. Graylan Hagler is an African-American pastor and activist. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Hagler received a Bachelor’s Degree in Religion from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1976. Three years later, he received his Masters of Divinity degree from The Chicago Theological Seminary...
(of the United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...
), and Hillary Shelton (director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
-Washington National Office) held a "pray-in" consisting of a press statement, public prayer, and flight departure at a US Airways ticket counter at Reagan National Airport
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is a public airport located south of downtown Washington, D.C., in Arlington County, Virginia. It is the commercial airport nearest to Washington, D.C. For many decades, it was called Washington National Airport, but this airport was renamed in 1998 to...
.
Another protest, organized by the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, took place on December 1, 2006, in front of US Airways headquarters. The spokesman for the group said: "We want to tell US Airways that second-class citizenship is not an option." Other speakers at the gathering included a Jewish leader, a Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
cleric, and a Presbyterian
Presbyterianism
Presbyterianism refers to a number of Christian churches adhering to the Calvinist theological tradition within Protestantism, which are organized according to a characteristic Presbyterian polity. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures,...
pastor who told the crowd that the "Imams did nothing to merit their exclusion from the flight". A spokesman for the Muslim American Society said that several of the affected imams did not attend the gathering because they are shy about publicity, and had been humiliated.
One of the imams, al-Shqeirat, spiritual leader of the Islamic Community Center of Tempe
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, USA, with the Census Bureau reporting a 2010 population of 161,719. The city is named after the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Tempe is located in the East Valley section of metropolitan Phoenix; it is bordered by Phoenix and Guadalupe on the west, Scottsdale...
, said in an interview that the imams were likely to file a discrimination lawsuit against US Airways, saying that "it was handled in an unprofessional way, and the decision (to remove them from the plane) was made by unprofessional people."
Muslim Congressman-elect Keith Ellison
Keith Ellison (politician)
Keith Maurice Ellison is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. The district centers on Minneapolis. He was re-elected in 2010. Ellison is a co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.He is the first Muslim to be elected to the...
, who gave a talk on "Imams and Politics"" at the meeting from which the flying imams were returning home, attempted to organize a meeting between US Airways executives, the Metropolitan Airports Commission
Metropolitan Airports Commission
The Minneapolis-Saint Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission is the owner and operator of Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport in Minnesota as well as six other reliever airports in the Twin Cities region, which primarily provide service to private individuals and businesses, but also have...
, and other legislators and community members to discuss the incident.
Investigations by the airline, the Air Carrier Security Committee of the Air Line Pilots Association, and the Department of Homeland Security supported the actions of the airline and found no evidence that the men were removed from the airline due to religious discrimination because they were "merely praying," but rather for security reasons. A US Airways spokesperson said, "We've done what we typically do in a situation where there is a removal or some kind of customer service at issue.... We talked with crew members and passengers and those on the ground.... We found out the facts are substantially the same, and the imams were detained because of the concerns crew members had based on the behavior they observed, and from reports by the customers.... We're looking at it as a security issue and as a customer-service issue and where we might need to do outreach." A meeting between the six imams and the airline as part of the investigation was canceled at the imam's request.
The imams retained the Council on American-Islamic Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...
(CAIR) as their legal counsel. Nihad Awad
Nihad Awad
Nihad Awad is the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations .- Early life :Nihad Awad was born in Amman New Camp, a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. He studied at Second Amman Preparatory School for Boys, located at the camp and belongs to UNRWA, and at Salaheddine...
, executive director of CAIR, sent a letter to the airline seeking a settlement agreement and said, "otherwise, the group is prepared to go to court.” Awad told CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, “This is very important. Otherwise we have no guarantees such incidents with US Airways and other airlines would not happen again.” No information about the amount of damages sought was given.
On October 27, 2009, the "flying imams" and the air carrier settled out of court for an unknown amount.
Lawsuit
On March 12, 2007, the imams' lawyer, Omar Mohammedi, filed a lawsuit on their behalf for unspecified damages, citing "fear, depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
, mental pain and financial injury" on the part of the imams. The lawsuit targeted US Airways and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, along with several unnamed passengers on the flight, who had reported on the imams' behavior to the flight crew, referred to as "John Doe
John Doe
The name "John Doe" is used as a placeholder name in a legal action, case or discussion for a male party, whose true identity is unknown or must be withheld for legal reasons. The name is also used to refer to a male corpse or hospital patient whose identity is unknown...
s" in the lawsuit. The decision to include passengers among the targets of the lawsuit was a controversial one, with some legal experts saying it could have a "chilling effect" on airline security. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, filed a brief on behalf of the passengers, and called this aspect of the lawsuit "legal terrorism".
As a result of the lawsuit, on March 22, 2007, U.S. Representative Steve Pearce
Steve Pearce
Stevan Edward "Steve" Pearce is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He previously held the seat from 2003 to 2009 and was an Assistant Minority Whip.-Early life, education and career:...
introduced the "Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act of 2007" into the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
, a bill that would have outlawed the suing of airline passengers who report on suspicious activity. On March 27, the bill was scrapped, and the wording instead placed into the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007, through an amendment sponsored by Representative Peter T. King
Peter T. King
Peter T. "Pete" King is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Republican Party. King's central Long Island district includes parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties....
. At the same time, the imams amended their lawsuit to sue only those "John Does" who had acted "with the intent to discriminate". On July 19, this portion was removed from the bill when the bill's final wording was drafted by a House and Senate conference committee. The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported, however, that in late July 2007 "lawmakers in Congress reached a deal on a homeland security bill to include language, crafted in response to the imams case, that would give immunity from lawsuits to people who report suspicious behavior. The bill passed the House and Senate."
On August 1, 2007, the imams' attorney Frederick Goetz announced a motion to amend the complaint to include the names of the individuals responsible for the imams' removal had been entered. The list of names included employees of the airline and police officers, but not passengers. Goetz said "We've identified the people we think are responsible", and said that their amending the complaint had "absolutely nothing to do" with the bill in Congress.
Conflicting accounts
Shahin denied allegation of suspicious behavior, and said everyone in the group had round-trip tickets and that he has the documentation to prove it, that he asked for a seatbelt extension because he weighs 290 pounds (130 kg), and that the group conducted their sunset-time prayers in a quiet manner.The police report shows the imams sitting in seats 1B, 9C, 9D, 21B, 25D, and 25E. Regarding the claim that the imams did not sit in their assigned seats, Shahin said that only one imam, Sadeddin, switched seats. Sadeddin, who is blind and claimed to need assistance, convinced a coach passenger to exchange seats so that he could sit next to Sulaiman in Row 9. Explaining his seat in first class, Shahin said that he is a frequent flyer and had received an Elite Member upgrade to first class.
US Airways has not published the seat assignments of the imams, so their actual seat assignments are unknown.
Conflicting accounts about the use of handcuffs put that aspect of the controversy into question. On November 21, 2006, Shahin told the Associated Press, "Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible." Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman
Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...
reports a similar statement made on November 29. However, on December 1 The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
stated: "Mr. Shahin says they were not led off the plane in handcuffs, as reported, nor were they kept in handcuffs during their five-hour detention, and they were not harassed by dogs." However, a Washington Times editorial on December 2 claimed that Shahin had stated that the imams were already handcuffed when they were taken off the plane. To add to the confusion, a passenger told a group of news reporters a few hours later that "apparently they [the imams] were all in handcuffs by the end" of their time on the airplane, though it appears that she did not observe this directly.
The Washington Times reported that, according to Shahin, the US Airways refused to sell the imams a plane ticket, despite the intervention of an FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
agent who tried to persuade the airline in favor of the imams. FBI spokesman Paul McCabe disputes that an agent talked to US Airways on behalf of the imams.
Criticism of US Airways
The group had initially attracted attention by praying loudly in the departure lounge before boarding the plane. Spokespersons for Muslim advocacy organizations the Muslim American SocietyMuslim American Society
The Muslim American Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 that describes itself as an Islamic revival and reform movement....
and CAIR
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...
argued that rather than doing anything suspicious, all the men did was pray, and that the removal from the plane represented religious profiling. CAIR's Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
chapter spokesperson said that "All these men did was pray, and it was misunderstood. The bottom line is that they were Middle Eastern-looking men ... and that scares some people," and, "We are concerned that crewmembers, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam."
Criticism of the imams
An editorial in Investor's Business DailyInvestor's Business Daily
Investor's Business Daily is a national newspaper in the United States, published Monday through Friday, that covers international business, finance, and the global economy...
questioned whether the imams were "victims or provocateurs
Agent provocateur
Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...
", and suggested that it is possible the incident was planned in advance to gain publicity for planned congressional legislation against profiling. The Muslim American Society
Muslim American Society
The Muslim American Society is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993 that describes itself as an Islamic revival and reform movement....
also backed this legislation expected to be introduced by Representative John Conyers
John Conyers
John Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
of Detroit. Denouncing "the provocative agenda of these imams," Debra Burlingame opined that "it is nothing short of obscene that these six religious leaders (…) chose to turn that airport into a stage and that airplane into a prop in the service of their need for grievance theater."
A former federal air marshal
Federal Air Marshal Service
The Federal Air Marshal Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the supervision of the Transportation Security Administration of the United States Department of Homeland Security...
expressed the fear that the situation "will make crews and passengers in the future second-guess reporting these events, thus compromising the aircraft's security out of fear of being labeled a dogmatist or a bigot, or being sued," and that "Instilling politically correct fears into the minds of airline passengers is nothing less than psychological terrorism."
Steven Emerson
Steven Emerson
Steven Emerson, is an American journalist and author, who writes about national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism.Emerson is the author of six books, and co-author of two more. His television documentary Jihad in America won the 1994 George Polk Award for best Television Documentary, and...
accused the Islamic Center of Tucson, a mosque where Shahin served as president, of having "an extensive history of terror links."
Critics also noted Shahin's prior involvement with a similar case. Two Arizona college students and members of Shahin's mosque, Muhammed al-Qudhaieen and Hamdan al-Shalawi, were removed from an America West flight after making two attempts to open the cockpit
Cockpit
A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft. Most modern cockpits are enclosed, except on some small aircraft, and cockpits on large airliners are also physically separated from the cabin...
. According to the 9/11 Commission Report
9/11 Commission Report
The 9/11 Commission Report, formally named Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks...
, the FBI suspected this was a dry run for the 9/11 hijackings. The students filed racial-profiling lawsuits against America West, now part of US Airways
US Airways
US Airways, Inc. is a major airline based in the U.S. city of Tempe, Arizona. The airline is an operating unit of US Airways Group and is the sixth largest airline by traffic and eighth largest by market value in the country....
, with Shahin as their defense attorney
After the out-of-court settlement was announced in 2009, a USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
editorial called the imams' lawsuit "troubling", and stated that the lawsuit's conclusion could lead "others to act out in hopes of cashing in", and might prevent "passengers from speaking up, or airline crews from acting, when they have reasonable suspicions."
Media treatments
This controversy was the subject of a segment of talk showTalk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
host Jerry Klein's radio show. During the show Mr. Klein purposely pretended to support forcing American Muslims to wear "identifying markers" such as armbands or tattoos (as Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
did to Jews before and during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
) to provoke listener reactions (see Jerry Klein’s 2006 Islamophobia Radio Experiment).