Canadian Muslim leader gets 'Fascist America' welcome

[moeen yaseen]

CANADIAN MUSLIM DECRIES US FLIGHT ORDEAL

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Kassem was also asked whether he loved "God or Allah."

CAIRO — A Canadian Muslim leader became the latest victim of what some call "flying while a Muslim" after he was singled out by US airport officials and pestered with all sorts of questions in a dehumanizing experiment.
"You can't help but be intimidated," Munir El-Kassem, director at the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry and a university chaplain, told Canada News online on Thursday, June 7.

During a stopover in Detroit airport on May 5 en route from Quebec City to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Kassem was stopped, fingerprinted and questioned for hours.

The nightmare started when he told airport officers that he was going to give a lecture on Islam at an interfaith conference.

He was taken into a separate room and for four hours flooded with questions ranging from his family back in Canada to whether he had ever met Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.

Lebanese-born Kassem was also asked whether he loved "God or Allah."

He said all the time he could not help thinking about Maher Arar "when he fell in the hands of US authorities without any regard for innocence or anything else."

"I did think in those terms and did fear for my large family in London, Ontario."

Arar, a computer engineer holding both Canadian and Syrian citizenship, was arrested at New York's Kennedy Airport in 2002 while en route to Montreal after a visit to his wife's family in Tunisia.

He was flown to Jordan on a US government plane and taken overland to Syria, where he was held for 10 months before the Syrian officials conclude that he had no links to terrorism and return him to Canada.

Dehumanizing

Kassem says the whole experience left him angry-filled and dehumanized.

However, he only hopes his suffering would help ensure "things will never happen to me or anyone else again simply because of their faith."

The US Customs and Border Protection department (CBP) said Kassem's detention was only a sort of "inspection" and declined to answer why he was interrogated.

"Some people think of it as detainment. It is an inspection," said spokesman Ron Smith.

"Anyone who makes entry into the US is subject to an exam."

Mohammad Yassine, president of the Islamic Centre of Southwest Ontario, said Muslims traveling to the US always fear just such treatment.

"When I go to the States myself, I am concerned even though I am as clean as a snowflake," he said.

Six imams were recently removed from a domestic US flight, handcuffed and detained in the airport for questioning for over five hours for what passengers considered suspicious behavior.

US rights groups complain that racial profiling has been on the upswing since the 9/11 attacks.

A poll conducted on August 29 found that most Americans support profiling people who look "Middle Eastern" at airports and train stations.

Apology


"The government has to be very clear and say to the Americans our citizens cannot be treated in such a demeaning way," MP Matthyssen said.

Back in Canada, the government is being urged to take immediate action in Kassem's case.

The opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jack Layton wrote Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, urging him to press for an investigation and demand an apology from the US.

He insisted government action was needed to prevent Canadians from being harassed in future at the US border.

London NDP MP Irene Matthyssen said she was "mortified" by the discrimination against the respected Muslim community leader.

"The work he does is so very important -- he speaks publicly about tolerance and interfaith dialogue and being respectful," she stressed.

"The government has to be very clear and say to the Americans our citizens cannot be treated in such a demeaning way."


Related Links

Humiliated at US Borders
US, Canada Scolded Over Muslim Rendition
American Imams Sue US Airways
US Airline Apologizes for Pilgrims
Amnesty Condemns US Anti-Muslim Racial profiling

[MagsUK]

This is shocking behaviour in a so called democracy. How anyone can sing The Star Spangled Banner without laughing is beyond me.

[karlos]