Posted on 08/20/2006 7:10:52 PM PDT by blam
Jet scare over Asian men 'helps terrorists'
By Sally Pook
(Filed: 21/08/2006)
An airline yesterday stood by its decision to remove two Asian men from a holiday jet bound for Britain despite criticism from a Muslim group.
The two passengers were asked to leave Monarch flight ZB613 from Malaga to Manchester, apparently because other passengers became alarmed that the men were wearing heavy clothing and kept checking their watches. Cabin crew informed the Spanish authorities of the passengers' fears and the men were taken off the flight.
One of the passengers told a Sunday newspaper: "Some of the older children, who had seen the terror alert on television, were starting to mutter things like 'Those two look like they are bombers'. Some of the passengers were in tears."
After security checks the men boarded a later flight.
Yesterday an Islamic human rights group blamed "ever-increasing Islamophobia".
Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "It is counterproductive, not just because it is going to alienate people who are perceived to be Muslim, but also because terrorists have shown that they will make themselves look completely different to how people perceive them to look.
"By profiling people on the basis of ethnicity or religion we are actually endangering our lives."
Patrick Mercer, the Conservative homeland security spokesman, described the incident as a victory for terrorists.
"These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally. For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense."
Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham, said: "I think that what happened is just hugely irrational." Monarch confirmed that the men were removed, but would not give details of what they had done to arouse the fears of the other passengers.
Some Muslims - who aren't actually terrorists - have been known to try to throw a scare into their fellow passengers just for the heck of it, knowing that they can't actually be arrested for it. The airline did exactly the right thing - this is a signal that if Muslim passengers start messing with others' heads, they will be taking the next plane to their destination. That ought to discourage quite a few of these guys from playing out their terrorist impersonations.
Better still, have the air marshalls shot a few of them.
Phobia, is it? The atrocities are planned and perpetrated 1:in the name of Muslims worldwide, 2:in the name of Islam, and 3:in the name of Allah. If Muslims feel threatened, they need to solve their problem. If they don't, someone else will have to.
What was it Henry the K said, something like "even the paranoid have enemies?"
youth IS a code word, but asian in britain is the normal term for people from pakistan.
I guess the wogs are running the country then....No wonder they are eradicating all the old English customs.
Me too.
Not all Asians are Pakistani or Muslim. In fact, the vast majority of Asian are not.
Why should Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos, and Thais be stigmatized just because someone is afraid to call a Muslim a Muslim.
What happened is eminently rational.
'They deserve the next attack...and there certainly will be another.'
That's a crappy thing to say about our best ally. It's as stupid as saying we deserved 911 because we support Israel. It's the terrorists who are the bad guys and we're target number 1 - if the brits hadn't been on the ball we'd still be discussing the 10 American airliners that blew up along with the thousands of dead Americnas.
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