American Airlines said the man had made the flight attendant 'uncomfortable'.
Published: Thu 21 Jul 2016, 12:53 PM
Updated: Thu 21 Jul 2016, 6:48 PM
- By
- Curated by Yousuf Saifuddin Kapadia
A Muslim man was removed from an American Airlines flight after a flight attendant publicly announced his name, seat number and said she would be "watching" him.
According to a report by The Independent, Mohammed Ahmed Radwan had boarded a plane in Charlotte, North Carolina and the flight attendant went to the tannoy and said: "Mohammed Ahmed, Seat 25-A: I will be watching you."
The employee made no other announcements about any other passenger.
On enquiring from the employee on why she had made the announcements, she reportedly responded that he was being "too sensitive".
Radwan had reported the incident to two other American Airlines employees, after which he was told to leave the plane as he had made the first air stewardess "uncomfortable".
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has filed a complaint about the incident, which happened in December last year, to the Department of Transportation after failing to resolve the matter directly with the airline.
"Given the continuing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric and hate crimes occurring throughout the United States, this type of reckless and harmful conduct should not be tolerated by our nation's airlines, which are legally charged with safely carrying all individuals who are rightfully present in an equal and nondiscriminatory manner, without regard to their religious affiliation or ethnicity," the letter read. "This incident is particularly troubling given the recent wave of incidents in which airline personnel have arbitrarily removed passengers of Muslim and/or Middle Eastern background without an objectively reasonable cause or explanation."
Commenting on the incident, American Airlines issued a statement: "American [Airlines] was contacted by CAIR earlier this year. We thoroughly reviewed these allegations and concluded that no discrimination occurred. We serve customers of all backgrounds and faiths and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind."
Earlier this year, an Arab-American woman had accused another US airline, United Airlines, for "profiling" her family after its staff kicked them off a flight "for no reason", in a repeat of a similar incident last year when hundreds of people pledged to boycott the carrier over alleged discrimination.
The family had requested for a formal apology from United Airlines after being removed from a flight which claimed was "discrimination at its finest".
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