Perhaps you have heard of the "Flying Imams" lawsuit, brought on by an
incident on U.S. Airways in November 2006. The lawsuit against U.S.
Airways and the United States Government was filed by six Muslim clerics
who claim discrimination because they were removed from their flight
before take-off on account of "suspicious behavior" noted by both the
flight crew and fellow passengers. The Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in a separate trial
recently brought by the United States Attorney General against terror
front organizations, announced the imams' lawsuit earlier this year.
The lawsuit originally included fellow passengers as defendants as well
as U.S. Airways and the U.S. Government, although these passengers were
removed after a public outcry.
U.S. Airways officials said the men's behavior included alleged
anti-American statements, changing their seat assignments so that they
would be scattered around the airplane, and asking for seat-belt
extenders, which could be used as weapons.
Now comes news of two similar suspicious incidents. NBC San Diego
recently reported that six Michigan men have filed a lawsuit against
American Airlines, claiming they publicly were humiliated while being
escorted from an aborted flight in San Diego. The six men, all Iraqi
military contractors hired by the U.S. Army to teach Marines about Iraqi
culture and etiquette, were returning to Detroit on August 28. The men
were detained after a passenger heard them speaking Arabic, grew
uncomfortable with their behavior and asked that she and her two
children be removed from the flight. During their brief detention the
men were questioned and released. There was no law enforcement officer
involved, no one was imprisoned and no one was handcuffed. Yet one of
the men is reported to have said that, "They treated me like a
terrorist; I'm anything but a terrorist. We didn't do anything wrong,
but they made everybody scared of us," according to NBC San Diego. The
Detroit Free Press quoted another as saying they felt violated.
They are suing American Airlines for hundreds of thousands of dollars in
compensatory damages for hours of detainment, interrogation, public
humiliation and embarrassment.