‘Flying while Muslim’: Americans Booted off Alaska Airlines Flight 10 Months Ago for Texting in Arabic still Awaiting Promised Reparations
SOURCE: NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
BY: THERESA BRAINE
Two Muslim men who were booted off an Alaska Airlines flight nearly a year ago for texting in Arabic are still awaiting reparations, they said Monday.
The Americans of Sudanese descent, who are keeping their surnames private, were traveling from Seattle to San Francisco on business last Feb. 17 when they became victims of “flying while Muslim,” as the experience has come to be called.
A fellow first-class passenger noticed Arabic text messages on one of their phones. The passenger didn’t speak Arabic, and recognized only a few symbols, emojis and numbers. Nonetheless, airline personnel were summoned, and the men were taken off the plane – marched past the other passengers, with their bags – and questioned.
Not only that, said Abobakkr and Mohamed and their attorneys, but once the texts were translated and showed zero security threat, they still were not allowed back on the plane.
In part, one of the texts read, “Peace be upon you, Captain,” according to KIRO-TV. And the Port of Seattle Police Department quoted its responding officer as saying, “An Alaska Airlines manager told me there was a misunderstanding … there was no threat of any kind.”
The airline deplaned and rescreened everyone and brought in a K-9 unit. Alaska Airlines even went so far as to empty the bathroom tank because one of the men had relieved himself in it, the Washington State chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (WA-CAIR) said.
The two are looking not just for reparations but also for systemic change, they said at a press conference Monday.
“When we traveled that day, we were not treated like the rest of the people,” Abobakkr said, according to Huffington Post. “It made me feel little and unequal.”
Once all the drama was over, Alaska Airlines rebooked them onto later, separate flights, CAIR-WA said, bringing them to San Francisco too late to complete their itinerary, “and too traumatized to benefit from any part of their trip.”
“This disturbing incident is just the latest in a pattern of Muslims being unfairly singled out by airline companies,” said Imraan Siddiqi, Executive Director of CAIR-WA, in a statement. ” ‘Flying while Muslim’ has now become a globally recognized phenomenon of suspicion and humiliation, and this phenomenon must come to a stop. We call on Alaska Airlines to address the mistreatment of these men once and for all.”
Alaska Airlines has since promised an investigation and said it would make it up to the men.
“We’re sorry that two of our guests had such a distressing experience last February, when they were removed from their flight after a fellow passenger became concerned about the text messages his seatmate was sharing,” the airline said in a statement obtained by KIRO. “Alaska Airlines strictly prohibits unlawful discrimination, and we take such complaints very seriously.”
It took the two this long to come forward, CAIR-WA staff attorney Brianna Auffray said in a statement, because they had at first held back to give Alaska Airlines a chance to respond.
“When the incident first happened, we expected that Alaska would come through with the refunds they promised and apologize,” Auffray said. “We didn’t go public at that time because the clients wanted to give Alaska some time to make amends. All they really wanted was a sincere apology and assurances that this would not happen to anyone else. Had they received that, we wouldn’t be coming forward now.”
The men continued holding off after the pandemic intruded in March, curtailing travel, because they didn’t want to harm an industry already hammered by the circumstances, Auffray said.
“But now that the vaccine has been approved and people will inevitably get back to traveling, it has become more important than ever that we get assurances that Alaska will not treat any other Muslim travelers the way they treated our clients,” she said. “That’s why we’re coming forward with their story now.”
“I will go to the end of this process because I want the airlines to stop doing this to any person,” Abobakkr said in the CAIR-WA statement. “We are speaking up not just for Muslim people but for any person, whoever it is.”
