Eagerly awaiting the free speech mavens on the right, screaming about how "safe spaces" and "political correctness" are destroying America when this nonsense is the actual real problem.
A UC Berkeley student whose family fled Iraq in 2002 after his diplomat father was killed under Saddam Hussein’s regime, was booted from a Southwest Airlines flight and questioned by the FBI after another passenger heard him speaking Arabic, NBC Bay Area reports.
In a story originally reported in the Daily Californian, student Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, 26, states he was flying home from attending a dinner at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council with Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon when he stopped to make a call to an uncle.
Makhzoomi explained that conversation was conducted in Arabic and, as he said goodbye, he used the phrase “inshallah,” which translates as “if God is willing.”
The student said that after hung up, he noticed a female passenger looking at him who then got up and left her seat.
“She kept staring at me and I didn’t know what was wrong,” he explained. “Then I realized what was happening and I just was thinking ‘I hope she’s not reporting me.’”
Moments later an airport employee asked Makhzoomi to step off the plane and onto the passenger boarding bridge where he was greeted by three security officers.
Makhzoomi was told the woman thought he said “Shahid,” meaning martyr — a term linked to Islamic terrorists
After pointing out the incident was rooted in Islamophobia, the student was told he would not be allowed to get back on the plane as he heard one of the security officers speaking with the FBI.
“At that moment I couldn’t feel anything,” he said. “I was so afraid. I was so scared.”
If Islamophobia has reached this point in 2016, imagine what it'll be like after Trump wins. I'm tired of hearing about how "liberal fascism" is preventing people from saying things when the real fascism is -- surprise! -- coming from the usual assholes on the "libertarian" right.
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