6 Jan - USA:

NEW YORK (AFP) – An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded 240,000 dollars in compensation, campaigners said Monday.

Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York's JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.

"The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling," said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.

Link

2 Jan - USA:

A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing.

Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was "impressed with the professionalism" of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

Link

ImamMohammad Ali Elahi, of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, is an American citizen. He has lived in America for 18 years.

As a Muslim and an Imam, Elahi wears robes and the traditional amamah headwear of a Shi'a leader, which has made him a prime candidate for searches at airports.

On Oct. 22, after getting off a return flight from his native Iran at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Elahi was picked for a search. After a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer searched his luggage, they decided to search Elahi's laptop.

"This is not the first time I've been searched. I am accustomed to it," Elahi said. "I told the officer I had nothing to hide, and they took it away."

When CBP officers brought his computer back 20 minutes later, it was broken.

"I lost eight years of my work, since I did not have any backup of the information. They did not even apologize," Elahi said. [Link]

Critics of the government's secret no-fly list scored a potentially important victory Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that would-be passengers can ask a judge and jury to decide whether their inclusion on the list violates their rights.

In a 2-1 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a suit by a former Stanford University student who was detained and handcuffed in 2005 as she was about to board a plane to her native Malaysia.

The ruling is apparently the first to allow a challenge to the no-fly list to proceed in a federal trial court, said the plaintiff's lawyer, Marwa Elzankaly.

The decision would allow individuals to demand information from the government, present evidence on why they should not have been on the list, and take the case to a jury, Elzankaly said.

The ruling means that "someone who finds it's likely that their name has been placed on a government watch list will get their day in court," Elzankaly said. [Link]

For at least the last six years, federal border agents have been taking travelers' laptop computers away from them to be searched without any evidence of the travelers' wrongdoing. Border officials have been able to share copies of the laptops' contents with other agencies - and to prosecute travelers for crimes based on what they've found on the illegally searched and seized computers.

Anyone's computer (or flash drive, hard drive, iPod, cell phone or pager) can be seized, and has been seized. According to a recent survey by the Association of Corporate Travelers, 7 percent of business travelers report having their laptops searched by the federal government. One of the reasons why the public is finally learning about this program is that businesses were starting to get worried about their trade secrets leaking out to rivals. It's an unfortunate way to learn about this infringement upon our Fourth Amendment rights. [Link]

The federal government is putting border officials at Mississauga's Pearson International Airport through sensitivity training so they can more appropriately deal with Arab and Muslim passengers.

The Canada Border Services Agency is contracting out training sessions for up to 500 of its border services officers, stressing the need for those who screen passengers to "effectively perform their enforcement responsibilities in a respectful manner" at Canada's busiest hub.

Groups representing Canadian Arabs and Muslims are welcoming the sensitivity courses, scheduled between this September and March 31, 2009, as necessary and overdue.

"After 9/11 we became all potential terrorists without doubt, and we still have some examples of people being picked up from the line because they wear long beards or the hijab," said Mohamed Boudjenane, executive director of the Canadian Arab Federation. "It still happens on a regular basis."

He said his organization has held meetings with several government departments, including the federal border agency, to raise complaints of profiling and discrimination, and even delivered training kits to the CBSA last fall.

"That sort of proactive act, or measure, didn't come out of the blue. We had to lobby very hard with them to realize that you cannot (target certain groups) because you have preconceived perceptions or because there are all sorts of clichés out there."

Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said training courses are an "excellent idea" that are in line with the seminars and speeches that he has delivered to federal employees, including with the Canadian Air Transportation Safety Authority, over the last two years.

But he still hears complaints of Muslim and Arab passengers returning from certain Middle Eastern countries like Iran and Syria being subjected to greater scrutiny than Muslims and Arabs returning from European countries.

Those travellers are also more likely to have their luggage searched, to be questioned about their activities and purchases abroad and to have their passport information taken down, Elmasry said. [Link]

Jawad Khaki, a corporate executive from Sammamish, Wash., was returning home from a business trip to Ireland and Germany last year when a customs agent at the airport asked him to turn on his cell phone.

He already had told the agent in detail where he had traveled and why, so when the agent began looking over the to-do list and calendar in his phone, Khaki was shocked.

"It was an invasion of privacy," he said. "I thought it was going too far."

Khaki's story joins what seem to be growing numbers of similar reports from people - many of them Muslims or of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent - who say that their laptops, cell phones or other electronic devices were searched or seized at airports or U.S. border crossings, and that they've been questioned extensively.

The heightened scrutiny is prompting concern and raising questions among a diverse array of groups, from Muslim associations to law firms, corporate groups and technology organizations. [Link]

Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a series of decisions mimicking an odd dance. The end result? The first jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff in a post-9/11 airline racial profiling case against a company that was overturned. The outcome is devastating to all people who suffer discrimination and seek a remedy in court. However, the process by which this decision was reached may be even more disturbing than the outcome.

In a decision issued on January 10, 2008, the three-judge panel that heard the appeal stated: "Race or ethnic origin of a passenger may, depending on context, be relevant information in the total mix of information raising concerns that transport of a passenger ‘might be' inimical to safety." This statement indicates that these three judges find it acceptable to consider a passenger's race in determining if he or she may travel on an airplane. This is a frightening legal ruling with enormous implications.

Claims of racial discrimination are notoriously tough cases to win. Whether in a workplace, restaurant, or jury selection, a person in power who discriminates based on race can usually concoct a non-race-based reason to justify an otherwise racially discriminatory action. As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in a concurring opinion to the Supreme Court's most important decision concerning racial discrimination in jury selection: "Any prosecutor can easily assert facially [race] neutral reasons for striking a juror, and trial courts are ill equipped to second-guess those reasons."

Plaintiffs bringing discrimination cases therefore face an uphill battle to convince a jury to look deep into the mind of the decision-maker and determine that the true reason, the motivating factor for the decision—be it firing, exclusion from a public place, or dismissing a juror—was race.

After 9/11, public frenzy, fueled by media and the government, gave rise to widespread suspicions of people of Arab descent. As early as one week after the attacks, a New York Times commentator wrote that prior to 9/11, the idea that racial profiling was wrong was "so universally accepted that it had become the received wisdom." In the aftermath, the question became whether it was acceptable to "stereotype." The answer appeared to be yes, at least from reported experiences. Since then, "flying while Muslim" has become one description for post- 9/11 racial profiling on airlines, a play on the "driving while Black" description of police targeting African Americans for traffic stops.

In this context post-9/11 racial discrimination claims, especially those pertaining to airlines, have seemed so daunting that few plaintiffs and plaintiffs' attorneys have chosen to litigate these cases. Because of the high security risk associated with airlines, instances of racial profiling—even when blatant—have seemed sure losers and were, indeed, frequently lost even before trial.

Finally, lawyers at Public Citizen Litigation Group brought the case of Cerqueira v. American Airlines. The plaintiff, a man of Portuguese descent, suffered serious financial and emotional injury when, mistaken for "Middle Eastern," he was removed by the pilot from an American Airlines flight. An American Airlines administrator subsequently refused to rebook Cerqueira on a later flight. After a Boston jury awarded Cer- queira a six-figure verdict, civil liberties lawyers and racial profiling activists were given hope that anti-discrimination laws still had teeth to rectify the injustices perpetrated in the name of national security.

Sadly, the victory did not last. In an appeal to the First Circuit, American Airlines attacked all aspects of the trial, including the jury's decision. The airline must have understood that it had far more at stake than this one verdict against it as reports of similar incidents had emerged all over the country and any indication that profiled individuals could successfully sue might subject American and others to extensive liability for violating their passengers' rights.

American Airline's efforts were rewarded. As noted above, the First Circuit panel not only overturned the jury verdict, but took the unusual step of entering a final judgment in favor of American Airlines, rather than sending the case back for a new trial. It ruled that not only did the trial judge give an erroneous jury instruction that rendered the verdict invalid, but also that under the correct standard, no reasonable jury could find that either the pilot who kicked Cerqueira off the plane or the agent who denied him rebooking was motivated by race.

This decision was, in part, rooted in the court's surprising conclusion that the customary test for determining if discrimination caused a plaintiff's injury—known as the McDon- nell Douglas burden-shifting analysis —doesn't apply in the airline context. Rather, a higher, even tougher standard for the plaintiff is at play, essentially requiring that plaintiffs present direct evidence of discriminatory animus; inferences and circumstantial evidence no longer have value. It is a rare case where direct evidence can be found.

As if that was not bad enough, the three-judge panel went on to suggest that even if race had been a factor in the pilot's decision to remove Cerqueira, it could have been permissible. It was a gratuitous comment, unnecessary to support their decision. Indeed, Public Citizen, barred from retrying the case by the First Circuit's decision, filed a petition for rehearing by the entire court. "The panel's conclusion that racial profiling is a legitimate security measure is unprecedented," Public Citizen argued in its petition. On February 29, the full court denied the petition to rehear the case.

The unusual nature of the case was exacerbated by two additional maneuvers. First, two of the five active judges on the court dissented from the decision to deny rehearing—a relatively rare occurrence. The dissenters were critical of the court's failure to review the three-judge panel's decision and of some particular aspects of the decision itself, but did not touch the single most objectionable comment—that using race as a factor to deny airline service to a passenger is permissible.

Second, and most likely related, the original panel issued an "errata" to its opinion. Rather than correct a simple typographical or citation error, the court's "errata" eliminated the entire paragraph in which the panel included its offensive legalization of racial profiling. Though we can only speculate about the court's reason for issuing the errata—for instance, would there have been one more vote for rehearing had the paragraph stayed in the opinion?—we do know that this stealth move has two practical consequences.

First, it puts this egregious throwback to legalized racism out of reach of legal challenges. Second, it effectively denies that the three-judge panel ever legalized racial profiling so explicitly. Because the change was issued in the form of an errata and not an amendment to the decision, no researcher looking for the case in its official published report will ever know that it was so altered.

Though the court's errata was rescinded after for six weeks when it legalized racial profiling, the extremity of the three-judge panel's original statement cannot be ignored. The panel's remarks regarding the per- missibility of considering race as a factor in the airlines' safety calculus is reminiscent of the Supreme Court's statements upholding the constitutionality of Japanese internment during World War II. In the infamous 1944 decision, Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court explained that, "All legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can."

Though Korematsu has long been condemned by legal scholars and courts alike, it has never actually been overruled. Thus, even today, the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the exclusion order that drove Korematsu from his home and to an "assembly center" remains the law, ruling that, "When under conditions of modern warfare our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger."

In their original decision last month, three judges of the First Circuit managed to align themselves, if only temporarily, with one of the most shameful moments in U.S. legal history. They made a bold and unnecessary statement ostensibly permitting race to be considered when determining if a passenger is "inimical" to airline safety. Although that statement was ultimately struck, there can be no doubt that it was not made accidentally. We can only conclude, therefore, that we find ourselves in a dangerous judicial climate, where such a ruling is only a vote or two away from becoming law.

And yet, the First Circuit comforts us with its assurance that "[t]his case does not involve any claim of constitutional right on the part of the plaintiff...[r]ather, the case involves only the intersection of various statutes, which articulate competing policy concerns."

Apparently, as it is merely the issue of interpreting two statutes, we should not concern ourselves that we are losing legal protection against institutionalized racism. [Link]

A man with a knife while trying to board a Boston-bound airliner at Syracuse Hancock International Airport was detained before the knife was taken and he was allowed to go, Syracuse police said.

Gurnam S. Virk, 55, of Merrimack, NH., had a four-inch lock-blade knife under his shirt, police said. Virk told police he is a member of the Sikh religion and he carries the knife as part of his religion, police said. He had forgotten he had the knife on him, he told police.

Virk . . . was not charged and was given a receipt for the knife when police confirmed his story. [Link]

A NATIONAL CIVIL rights organization named the Sikh Coalition has a big problem with security screeners at San Francisco International Airport. The group recently released a report that says SFO is a "worst-case scenario" for turbaned Sikh travelers, claiming this group of passengers is subjected unfairly to second screening as an act of profiling that has little to do with preventing terrorism.

It would be easy to dismiss this as a one-sided view of how federal security screeners — and not airport employees — are conducting themselves. But there are some disturbing facts emerging that lead us to believe there is something amiss here.

The coalition says that it found 80 of 113 airport screening complaints involved additional searches, and 28 of those 80 took place at SFO.

The Transportation Security Administration altered its approach toward travelers wearing turbans. There was a time when Sikh passengers were forced to remove their turbans; the headgear is an article of faith only to be removed in the home and in private. To Sikhs, that's similar to strip searching.

The TSA backed off and travelers wearing turbans were searched only if they failed to clear metal detectors or other preliminary checks.

Since October, the TSA gave screeners discretion on when to further search travelers wearing bulky headgear, taking into consideration things such as action suspicious and travel itinerary. The coalition claims SFO security staff viewed the new guidelines as a mandate, meaning anyone with a turban that looks funny is subject to more screening.

TSA spokesman Nico Melendez claims the high number of complaints at SFO reflect the fact more passengers arrive from India to SFO than any other domestic airport. But later he claims that metal detectors and wands cannot filter out all weapons, such as plastic explosives. He said it's critical to "keep a step ahead" of terrorists.

This kind of mentality is disturbing. With that approach, why don't we second-screen everyone if metal detectors aren't picking up everything?

There's a good chance that once again civil rights are being threatened by paranoid airport security screeners who see a terrorist under every turban.

The truth is that it is impossible, given current technology, to filter out everyone. If there is probable cause for additional searching, that's one thing, but to arbitrarily pull people over for what they wear or what they look like is unacceptable.

We suggest the TSA and Federal Aviation Administration investigate how SFO screeners are conducting themselves, perhaps even an independent probe, and if there's unnecessary screening, it must be eliminated.

Look at other major airports and how they screen without complaints, perhaps there are some good models across the country that SFO can pattern itself after.

We understand this is one coalition's complaint, but it appears to have merit. We hear enough alarms to know an investigation is warranted and a change of policy is needed. [Link]

Prabhjot Singh has flow out of San Francisco International Airport nine times since December. Nine times he was pulled aside for secondary screening of the turban required by his Sikh religion.

"I'm generally the only one subjected to secondary screening," said Singh, a marketing executive for a software company who travels for work. "People are staring, like asking, 'What did this guy do?'"

A civil rights group says targeting passengers like Singh continues at the San Francisco airport, which the group said was the worst in dealing with Sikh passengers. The alleged racial profiling went on despite the Sikh Coalition's work with the Transportation Security Administration and a positive change in the federal guidelines — at least on paper, said Neha Singh, the coalition's advocacy director.

"The issue now is implementation, making sure the policy we worked hard on is being implemented on the ground," said Neha Singh, who is not related to Prabhjot Singh.

Of the 113 voluntary reports by Sikh travelers sent to the advocacy organization between Dec. 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, 80 were regarding additional screening.

Of those, 28 were at the San Francisco airport, the coalition said.

Sikh Coalition representatives believe that TSA screeners at the San Francisco airport were misinterpreting new rules giving them the discretion to check turbans as mandates to check them every time.

The TSA issued guidelines in August subjecting flyers wearing head coverings — such as cowboy hats, berets and turbans — to secondary screenings at airport checkpoints.

Protests from the Sikh community, which felt unfairly targeted, led to a collaboration between the Sikh Coalition and the TSA and a revision of the rule in October. The new federal guidelines give screeners more discretion, allowing flyers to opt for a pat-down of their headgear and options less intrusive than the removal of a turban — something Sikhs only do in private.

TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said his agency has received less than two dozen complaints relating to secondary screening of Sikh passengers at SFO since October, adding that the standards in San Francisco are the same as in other airports. A spokesman at San Francisco International Airport spokesman referred calls to Melendez.

"A private screening is offered to passengers, but it's about providing security," Melendez said. "We see enough items coming through the checkpoint to know what's common and what's uncommon."

The Sikh Coalition also identified airports whose screeners were praised for their cultural sensitivity — in Los Angeles, Portsmouth, N.H., and St. Augustine, Fla. [Link]

[T]he Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) [have announced a new program] designed to ensure that innocent airline passengers are not mistaken for individuals on government watch lists due to similar names.

A number of travelers have been falsely identified to be on a watch list and required to check-in at the ticket counter, facing increased delays and questioning before being permitted to continue the check-in process. As a result of intense lobbying by national organizations including SALDEF, DHS implemented the Travelers Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP) to allow passengers an avenue to clear their name from these lists. Unfortunately, these lists are often not feeding information to the airline’s airport self check-in kiosks. [SALDEF Press Release]

Religious, minority and civil rights activists are asking Homeland Security officials to screen their own airport screeners using video cameras to check whether passengers are being subjected to bias or profiling.

"We believe such controls are critical to ensuring that our nation's [screeners] are focused squarely on security threats and not distracted by any personal bias," the organizations said in a letter this week to Kip Hawley, director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). [Link]

A MUSLIM Chaplain from Liverpool claims “discriminatory” interrogation is happening on a regular basis at Manchester Airport.

Adam Kelwick, from Wavertree, says he was stopped and questioned for two hours on arrival at the airport as he returned from a Middle Eastern business trip on Wednesday, the third time this has happened since the introduction of the Terrorism Act in 2006.

He claims officials searched his lap top, phone, asked for his bank account pin number and put a string of questions to him.

The chaplain, who carries out charity work in the city to aid social cohesion, claims other friends and colleagues have complained about similar experiences. He said: “Some people I know would rather tolerate the congestion of the airports in London, rather than put up with the unreasonable questioning and discrimination at Manchester.

“I was ordered to remove all my items from my baggage piece by piece and was then taken into a small room and asked questions like ‘what is your mother’s date of birth?’ and ‘what school did you go to?’.

“It has happened a few times before at the airport but never when travelling from Liverpool or London.

“It is ironic, I was travelling in traditional Muslim dress, but an international terrorist isn’t going to fly around the world with a beard and a gown on.

“It is discriminatory and unfair. The first time it happens you think ‘OK, this is helping to deal with terrorism’ so I don’t mind, but for it to happen on a regular basis is unnecessary.”

During the interview, Mr Kelwick says he was treated with courtesy and professionalism, and he blames the issue on unjust laws, central Government’s misunderstanding of local Muslim communities and poor training of airport officials. [Link]

It is humiliating and demeaning. It is like being strip-searched.

That is how some Sikhs describe airport security patting down their turbans or telling them to remove the sacred headgear.

The Transportation Security Administration and the Sikh Coalition worked together to create a new TSA policy that went into effect last October in response to 32 civil rights violation complaints filed by the coalition last summer. Despite the new policy giving Sikhs more options in searches, the coalition has received 78 complaints of civil rights violations since then, raising questions about the effectiveness of the new policy’s implementation.

“There is still a lot of racial profiling going on,” said Neha Singh, advocacy director and staff attorney for the Sikh Coalition in New York. “We are concerned with how the new policy is being implemented in different airports.”

Under the new policy, Sikhs do not necessarily have to remove their turbans, and they have the option to conduct the pat-down themselves.

Though the new policy is better for Sikhs, Neha Singh said, its implementation is far from perfect. A few of the 78 complaints filed since October were egregious examples of discrimination, she said, but most of them were claims of mandatory turban checks.

“There seems to be confusion among the TSA workers,” Singh said. “It seems the waters have been muddied because the policy has changed several times.”

Most of the new complaints will be bundled into a quarterly report and given to the TSA, Singh said. The goal is for more civil rights advocacy and better implementation of the policy.

The TSA Office of Civil Rights was unavailable for comment.

Some Sikhs, such as Prabhjit Singh, just want the random search to be random.
Prabhjit Singh, 27, of Germantown, Md., travels extensively for his work as a motivational speaker for real estate agencies. He is also one of the original 32 complainants from last summer.

On a trip from Baltimore to Alabama in August, he passed through the metal detector without problem but was told that he was subject to a mandatory pat-down of his turban, according to the official complaint. When he informed the TSA workers that his rights were being violated, they became hostile and told him that he would not be traveling that day.

Prabhjit Singh eventually submitted to the pat-down and was allowed to travel but not before being yelled at more by the TSA workers, he said.

“I just remember looking around on the plane,” he said, “and thinking how unfair. No one else had to go through what I just went through.”

When he traveled under the new policy, in December, Prabhjit Singh again passed through the metal detector without problem but was asked to step to the side. He was allowed to pat down his own turban but believes he still was a victim of ethnic profiling.

“Every time I travel,” Prabhjit Singh said. “I know that I’m going to be searched, which would be fine if it was really random.”[Link]

Airport officials in Minneapolis and US Airways are seeking a jury trial for a lawsuit filed by five Muslim clerics who were removed from a plane.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission, which oversees Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, and the airline are also seeking immunity for employees named in the suit, claiming they are protected by a "John Doe" law passed last year by the U.S. Congress that guards people acting in an official capacity to prevent terrorist attacks, The Washington Times reported Friday.

The civil rights suit was filed by Ahmed Shqeirat, Mohamed Ibrahim, Didmar Faja, Omar Shahin, Mahmoud Sulaiman and Marwan Sadeddin after the men were removed from a flight for suspicious behavior. The suit claims officials engaged in "intentional discrimination" when they removed the imams from the plane.

"We believe the police officers acted appropriately and that it is important that airports across the nation be able to take action when there is a reasonable belief that travelers could be threatened," said Patrick Hogan, MAC spokesman.

"In this case, there were travelers and flight crew members who raised concerns, and we worked with federal authorities who interviewed the imams," Hogan said. "We believe the process worked as it should to protect the traveling public." [Link]

As thousands of Muslims prepare to embark on their holy pilgrimage to Mecca, local Islamic leaders are reaching out to teach others about the rituals of their faith.

Their immediate concern is for the Muslims traveling through Los Angeles International Airport. Leaders want their experience to go smoothly in light of heightened security and lingering fears on the part of the public.

"We want to make sure no one in this country is fearful while traveling," said Shakeel Syed of the Shura Council of Los Angeles, an umbrella organization that oversees mosques and masjids in Southern California. "At the same time, we want to make sure Muslims can successfully fulfill their religious obligations."

Thousands of Muslims are headed to Saudi Arabia to participate in a historic and sacred pilgrimage called hajj. Syed and leaders from other Muslim groups organized a meeting with officials from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration earlier this month to quell anxiety over some of the travel habits of these passengers.

The pilgrims, for example, will likely gather in sizable groups to recite daily prayers in the airport, which does not have a private chapel. Upon returning, the men will likely have shaved heads in keeping with one of the rituals of hajj, and the pilgrims may be carrying gallons of water culled from a sacred well in Mecca. [Link]

In response to community concerns, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will now proactively inform passengers subjected to secondary screening of their screening options. Under the previously policy, passengers were expected to know their 3 secondary screening options (self-pat down, puffer, TSA pat down) and then have to ask for it on their own. The change has not been made official, but will be implemented in the coming months. [Sikh Coalition Press Release]

A Canadian Muslim who says racial profiling was behind Air Canada's decision to deny him a ticket to board a flight three years ago filed a formal complaint Tuesday with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

While attempting to purchase a ticket in Vancouver to fly to Victoria in May 2004, Shahid Mahmood said he was flagged as a security threat, despite his valid government ID - and the fact Air Canada did not yet have a Canadian "no-fly" list.

"I was stunned at their refusal to allow me to board this flight," Mahmood told a news conference in Toronto.

The sales agent at the time said his name was "flagged" by the system and that he also wouldn't be able to fly the next day. He was also warned that future flights aboard Air Canada would require him to show his passport, he said.

Mahmood's Chilean-born wife, however, was allowed to purchase a seat without incident.

Despite repeated attempts to find out why he was flagged, the Toronto-born editorial cartoonist said the airline has never given him a proper explanation.

"I am just as in the dark, with no tangible answers from Air Canada, now as I was three years ago," he said.

Mahmood, who grew up in Pakistan, believes he was blocked because of his race and faith.

Nicole Chrolavicius, Mahmood's lawyer, billed the case as the first of its kind in Canada, and said it reflects the plight of other Muslim Canadians who have been unjustly prevented from travelling by air.

Since Canada's no-fly program, known as Passenger Protect, didn't exist when the incident occurred, it's likely Air Canada was unofficially using U.S. data on potential security threats, Chrolavicius suggested.

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick declined to comment on the case because it is now being reviewed by the commission.

However, in a letter dated May 17, 2007, and addressed to New Democrat MP Peggy Nash, who has been advocating Mahmood's case, the airline said it does not practice racial profiling.

Instead, the letter states that Mahmood's file was flagged "because, at that time, his name was a close match to a name on a security list."

The letter goes on to explain that if Mahmood had arrived earlier for the flight, he might have had time to complete the screening process.

According to the letter, Mahmood tried to buy a ticket 41 minutes before the flight's scheduled departure time.

Since the incident, Mahmood has flown on Air Canada without incident and has travelled on non-American carriers to Europe, the Middle East and South America.

However, he is afraid to enter the U.S. because he fears he is on a no-fly list there.

Sameer Zuberi, communications co-ordinator with the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his organization has fielded about 12 complaints from Canadians barred from flying, but most of those involved U.S.-bound flights.

Cases of mistaken identity are likely to increase as officials in different countries continue to swap no-fly information, Zuberi added. [Link]

Group detained in August says they were racially profiled

Six Michigan men who in August were escorted off an American Airlines flight and then detained filed a race discrimination lawsuit Wednesday against the airline, saying the incident was a clear case of racial profiling, false imprisonment and a violation of civil rights.

Filed in U.S. District Court by Allen Brothers PLLC of Detroit, the lawsuit seeks hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensatory damages for hours of detainment, interrogation, public humiliation and embarrassment. The incident occurred when the group was returning home from providing consulting work for U.S. troops.

"The airline treated these individuals like criminals, simply because of stereotyping and ignorance. The irony is, these men were returning home from training our troops before deployment to Iraq," said Lawrence Garcia, the attorney representing the men. "This kind of prejudice is completely un- American."

The incident occurred August 28 on American Airlines Flight 590, which left and then returned to the gate in San Diego, Calif., at the behest of the Airline's flight crew. The flight, which was headed to Chicago, was rescheduled from Aug. 28 to Aug. 29 as a result.

When the airplane returned to the gate, the gentlemen were segregated and detained, while the other 113 passengers were assisted in finding hotel rooms. All of the men who were detained were of Middle Eastern ethnic origin. No other persons were detained or questioned.

"They treated me like a terrorist; I'm anything but a terrorist," said David Al-Watan, one of the men detained by American Airlines. "We didn't do anything wrong, but they made everybody scared of us."

The men who filed suit are: David Al-Watan, Talal Cholagh, Ali Alzerej, Hassan Alzerej, Hussein Alsalih and Mohammad Al-Saedy.

Arab-Americans have experienced a surge in hate crimes over the past several years, with the FBI having documented a 1,600 percent increase in hate crimes following 9/11 against those perceived to be Muslim or Arab. [Link]