From The Washington Times, Muslim pilgrims urged to complain by Audrey Hudson. (via Iran Press News)
CAIR is representing the six imams removed from a US Airways flight last month and has asked for a meeting with the airline to seek an out-of-court settlement. It maintains that police and witness reports detailing the imams unusual behavior before their removal last month were ethnically and/or religiously motivated.The imams say they were praying and did not, as the reports say, change seats and make remarks critical of President Bush and the Iraq war.
Pilots and air marshals called the incident a "PC probe" to intimidate passengers and crew from reporting suspicious behavior by Muslim passengers and are fearful the incident will set off a domino effect of lawsuits.
Such lawsuits would be bad enough. But what if the law itself was turned against airline security? At the Star-Tribune, Katherine Kernsten suggests that the bogus imam incident is purposefully being used to promote an anti-profiling bill.
In the past few weeks the public relations campaign for the Profiling Act has moved into high gear. On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advised American Muslims to beware of the dangers of "flying while Muslim." In light of recent allegations of "airport profiling," it said, the council has set up a toll-free hotline for pilgrims traveling to Mecca for the hajj, or annual pilgrimage, who believe that their rights have been violated.The End of Racial Profiling Act has languished until now. What did it need to reinvigorate it? New congressional leadership, and that's coming in January. But it needed something else in this media age: a high-profile incident to jump-start it.
Little Green Footballs has the FOX News video of Debra Burlingame discussing the non-flying imams. Debra's Wall Street Journal editorial, which we linked to previously, can be read here.
Tim Sumner at 9/11 Families for America provides contact information to support U.S. Air and push back at CAIR.
Pajamas Media has a the police report on the Faking Imams.
More articles in our previous cartoon: Safety On Board.
Posted by Forkum at December 14, 2006 05:05 PM
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