Posted on 08/20/2006 2:10:04 PM PDT by World_Events
Passengers on a Manchester-bound flight have described how two men were removed from the plane because other travellers thought they were speaking Arabic. Heath Schofield, a passenger on the flight from Malaga, described it as being a "bit like Chinese whispers".
Monarch Airlines said passengers had demanded the men were removed because they were acting suspiciously.
Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood said it was disgraceful the pair seemed to have been judged on their skin colour.
The men - reported to be of Asian or Middle Eastern appearance - were taken from Wednesday's flight ZB 613 and questioned but were allowed to fly back to the UK later in the week.
Refusal to board
Mr Schofield, who was travelling with his wife Jo and their children, said: "We all started boarding the flight.
Heath and Jo Schofield were on the Manchester flight
"Our daughter noticed a couple of guys that were perhaps acting a bit strange. They went to the front of the queue, went to the back of the queue, and then they went and sat down by themselves.
"Anyway, we got on the plane and we boarded and it became apparent after we were already supposed to be flying that several of the passengers had refused to board the craft.
"A few rumours went round, it was a little bit like Chinese whispers, and then some more people decided they were getting off."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I don't see where the passengers were innappropriately dresesd or where it states that they were muslims. In fact, the only thing that I see is that they might have been middle eastern or asian, and someone thought they were speaking Arabic. This is the problem with letting passengers decide who can get on a flight.
My husband Has been accused of being arabic and a muslim many times. He is PuertoRican and Catholic. If someone doesn't want to fly with him, they are free to get off the plane. They should not have the right to have him removed from the plane. I think the airlines acted innappropriately.
Nobody gives a crap about "skin colour" any more. That is like, so mid-20th-Century.
It would take them under one minute to shave their bears. To act live civilized human beings should require no extra burden on their part.
Given our recent history, people everywhere should give extra attention to people who harbor an unusual attraction to goats, or clad their women in army surplus tents.
If we had more moderate Arabs prominently denouncing terrorism and helping the authorities to bust islamofascists, Flight Vetos would have never begun.
There was an article yesterday that said these guys were wearing heavy leather jackets that the passengers felt was inappropriate for the season.
I may be an intolerant bigot, but I'm not gonna be a sacrifice to satanallah!
More information: Mutiny on Flight 613
This is what people are supposed to do. I am sorry if your husband is harrassed, but these are the times we live in. If I were him, I would take care to dress appropriately and not act in such a way that would arouse suspicion.
No, you wouldn't find that in a piece on the BBC site. Here is the original article from the Daily Mail:
Another thing that I find interesting is that there still is no mention that they were not Muslims. This story could have been turned upside down by reporting "paranoid passengers refused two fly with two men that were later determined to be American Baptist missionaries"
I think most people would rather be alive and thought to be racist, then dead and congratulated for being sooooo PC. I know I would. I don't give a flying you-know-what what others think of me; I'd rather be alive.
The message is clear: If you see Muslims acting strangely at the airport, you are a rotten, rotten person for even *thinking* something could be amiss. Shame on you. Instead of reporting your suspicions, you should sit down and shut up like a good little sheep.
They said it sounded like "Chinese whispers", because it makes a healthy fear sound like uneducated delusions.
Very insightful. You're absolutely right. If these two had turned out to be something other than Muslims, the BBC would not be able to resist making that the focus of the story. The "Rubes mistake Hindus for Muslims" story practically writes itself. The only possible explaination for this not being the story is that the men were, in fact, Muslims.
Ever since 9/11, we've been hectored by security officials to be on the alert and vigilent about potential threats. Now when a group of people does exactly that, some fathead tries to guilt-trip them for it. Screw you and your PC-speak, Mister MP Mahmood, we're taking responsibility for our own safety these days. If that sometimes leads to innocent parties being inconvenienced, that's the breaks of being involved in a war.
I think it is the British variant of the game we would call "telephone", where one person whispers to another around a circle and you see how the message was distorted by the time it gets to the last person.
He is a firefighter and only wears one thing, ever. Jeans and an EMS t shirt. He speaks Spanish, English or Portuguese. It is generally the Portugeuse that people mistake for arabic. He hasn't been removed from a flight, but he has been asked to leave stores and once he was asked not to return to a dry cleaners. He has also had many patients ask for another medic because they thought he was a Muslim. Unfortunate, but not a big deal. Removing him from a plane would be a big deal. It is sad, even more because he worked on the WTC recovery for 6 weeks, without pay, and he is as American as he could be.
The passenger is saying that rumors were going around the boarding area but he believed they had been somewhat altered by the time they got to him.
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