Originally Posted by Hasan Suroor
In recent weeks, a number of people of Asian or Arab origin have been forced off flights in Europe and America. What these cases illustrate goes far beyond legitimate policing and security precautions. This is vigilantism.
ISOLATED INCIDENTS? Or a glimpse into the future? A sign that a new offence of "travelling while Asians," as a senior British Asian police officer put it, has already kicked in? That de facto "racial profiling" of air passengers is already taking place?
In recent weeks, since an alleged plot to blow up American airplanes came to light, there have been a number of incidents in which people of Asian or Arab origin have been forced off flights in Europe and America because they were seen as a potential security threat even though they had been cleared by airport security like other passengers and were later found to be completely innocent. (As I write this a Mumbai-bound U.S. plane returned to Amsterdam on Wednesday shortly after take-off because of alleged "suspicious" activity on board.)
The standard explanation is that the person in question was behaving "suspiciously" and other passengers did not feel comfortable travelling with him or her on board. In none of these cases, is it clear what precisely they were doing that aroused such serious suspicion that they needed to be offloaded despite having been through the most stringent security before boarding the aircraft.
Grounds for suspicion have ranged from the appearance of a person or dress to speaking a language other passengers did not understand or saying prayers before boarding the plane.
The most widely reported case is of two Asian students, Sohail Ashraf and Khurram Zeb, who were forced off a Manchester-bound flight from Spain while returning home after a holiday on August 16 when their white co-passengers refused to fly with them alleging that they may be terrorists. They were "escorted" out of the plane by airport police and questioned for several hours.
Their offence: they looked like Asians or Arabs; appeared to speak in a language that sounded like Arabic; "glanced" frequently at their watches; and wore clothes that did not suit the local climate at the time. This constituted "suspicious behaviour" in the eyes of other passengers who were able to work up enough rage to force the airline to off-load the pair. In the event, they turned out to be absolutely innocent. The two, who were born and brought up in Britain and speak English like any U.K.-born person would, described as unnerving the experience of being treated as terrorists and marched off at gunpoint.
"I can understand why people are so panicked. But just because we are Muslim does not mean we are terrorists ... We might be Asian but we're just two ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun," Mr. Ashraf said.
A spokesman for the airline said: "There were two passengers on the flight who came to the attention of the other people because they were apparently acting suspiciously. The flight attendants were sufficiently concerned to alert the crew who in turn informed the security authorities at Malaga airport."
In another incident at Manchester airport, a British Asian pilot Amar Ashraf was removed from a U.S.-bound flight and questioned by the police who reportedly asked him whether he knew why the U.S. authorities wanted him to be off-loaded. According to him, the aircraft was ready to take off when its doors were reopened and he was told to leave on grounds that no standby passengers were allowed to fly that day.
"They told me they weren't taking any passengers on standby but I think it was racial profiling ... I feel this was discrimination," he said. Why, he asked, was he questioned by armed police if the only reason he was offloaded was that no standby passengers were being taken.
Then there was the case of a doctor from Canada, Ahmed Farooq, who was reportedly "escorted off" a United Airlines flight in Denver after reciting prayers that other passengers regarded as suspicious. In another recent incident, Azar Iqbal, a British Asian, was questioned by U.S. immigration officials as he stepped off a Delta airlines flight in Atlanta and deported back to Britain.
Other incidents have included women wearing the hijab being evicted from flights and passengers objecting to travelling with a "bearded Muslim," according to a pilots website.
In these columns I have joined issue with those who criticise the anti-terror police for keeping an extra-vigilant eye on people from certain ethnic groups. I still maintain that if there is a consistent pattern of extremists or terrorists coming from a particular community or ethnic background then that community or group would inevitably be under greater scrutiny. But what these cases illustrate goes far beyond legitimate policing and security precautions. This is vigilantism.
These incidents have a terrifying echo of the lynch mob mentality whereby a group of people are able to have someone removed simply because they do not like the look of a person or the way he or she is dressed or the language he or she speaks. Commenting on the August 16 incident on the Malaga-Manchester flight, The Independent said in an editorial: "What happened on this flight was nothing less than mob rule. Instead of standing up to the irrational fears of passengers. This does not seem to be an isolated incident. Websites used by pilots report similar cases of individuals being singled out to quell the concerns of other travellers."
Moreover, it makes nonsense of airport security checks. What is the point of pre-boarding checks if a passenger can still be barred from travelling simply on the whims of other passengers? Even as there is widespread concern over this trend towards vigilantism, it is surprising how many people actually think it is okay. The argument is that in the new post-9/11 and 7/7 world, old rules do not apply, and however distasteful such experiences might be we must "come to terms" with them given the risks involved in ignoring a perceived threat.
"Political correctness can get one killed," wrote an American reader in a letter to a British newspaper adding: "If our governments or the airline industry will not keep us safe, then we must take these things into our hands. Vigilantism is not nice: neither is dying on an exploded aircraft."
Fuelling paranoia
It was British Prime Minister Tony Blair who, after the July 7 London bombings, declared that in the new climate of terrorism the "rules of the game have changed" and it was time to suspend the old notions of human rights and individual freedoms. I am not suggesting that he was inciting the "mob" but such statements from people in his position have the unintended effect of fuelling paranoia and encouraging the notion that everything is fair in the "war" against terrorism or "Islamic fascists," to borrow a term deployed by U.S. President George W. Bush. This notion then translates itself — as we have seen in recent weeks — into a licence for people to take any action they please to enforce the new "rules of the game."
Increasingly, any criticism of police or public over-reaction to a perceived threat from terrorism is either glibly dismissed as old-fashioned political correctness or met with the condescending response: yes, we know what you mean but what do you expect people to do when anyone can turn out to be a terrorist?
Fair enough. The threat of terrorism is real and there is need not only for vigilance but for extra-vigilance against groups or communities that have allowed themselves to be hijacked by extremists. But that still does not mean that people can take the law into their own hands against those who look different from "us" or look like "them." Or are we going back to the era of witch-hunts when any "strange" looking woman was taken to be a "witch" and lynched?
The point is: would two white men, conversing in a little known European language or "glancing" frequently at their watches, have suffered the same fate that two Asian men did on that flight from Malaga to Manchester? The question often asked in such situations is: but what if they were terrorists? The answer is: but what if the person sitting next to them who had aroused no suspicion had turned out to be a terrorist?
There is no cure for paranoia. Politicians and police have contributed to this climate of paranoia by constantly raising the spectre of a terrorist attack. This is virtually handing over victory to terrorists who can claim to have succeeded in disrupting normal life and behaviour. It also benefits the xenophobes who have always regarded foreigners as fifth columnists. Now they can target them with impunity.
Europe is barely starting to recover from its terrible history of ethnic and racial prejudice. Let that history not be repeated in the name of fighting terrorism.
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