I expect Jesse Jackson to take up the cause any moment now. In context it should be noted that the Times is not noted for its sympathetic treatment of Paks as it calls them.
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From the Times of India
Racial profiling grounds Asians in US
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
WASHINGTON: Sporadic incidents of Arab and South Asian passengers being off-loaded from commercial airplanes are being reported amid fears of unofficial racial profiling in the US. The incidents are occurring despite efforts by authorities to calm tempers following the devastating terrorist attacks here last week.
Ashraf Khan, a 32-year-old Pakistani businessman was bumped off a Delta Airlines flight from San Antonio International Airport on Monday because the pilot and the crew did not feel "comfortable" flying with him on board. In another incident, three Middle-Eastern looking men were forced to disembark a flight from Minneapolis Airport after other passengers refused to allow the plane to take off with them.
The shocking incidents come at a time when the airline industry is already in trouble following a week-long shut down, with passengers load at an all time low because of the terrorist attack. Many minorities are said to have cancelled travel plans even ahead of the reported incidents.
Khan was seat-belted on Delta flight 1469 departing San Antonio to Dallas for an onward journey to Pakistan to attend his brother's wedding when the captain of the aircraft asked to see him in the aerobridge. The captain then asked him to disembark, saying the crew did not feel safe with him on board.
"I never saw in my dreams that this would be happening to me...He has no right to embarrass me or ask me like that," Khan told the San Antonio Express-News that reported the incident. "I feel I'm a person. The terrorist attack doesn't have anything to do with me."
Khan, who runs a cellular telephone business, was dressed in regulation slacks, dress shoes and a T-shirt.
Delta Airlines said it did not practice or endorse any form of racial profiling. Travel agents reportedly offered Khan alternative flights that he declined. Aviation authorities said the captain of the plane had wide-ranging authority once the aircraft was ready for take-off.
Several Sikhs across the country have also reported difficulty while commuting and travelling, despite a great deal of publicity in the national media to their travails. The term 'towel heads' is the reigning pejorative on Internet chat rooms for anyone wearing a turban.
But those with Arabic sounding names seem particularly prone to suspicion.
At Boston's Logan International Airport -- origin of two of the hijacked flights on September 11 --Arab-looking passengers were pulled off three separate flights last weekend alone, according to media reports. In each instance, the suspicions of flight crews were determined to be unwarranted and they were allowed to carry on.
The Bush administration has worked hard to disabuse the public of its unwarranted fears, including a visit to a Washington mosque by the President earlier this week, during which he praised Islam as a noble religion that preached peace.
But so great is the anger and fear among many Americans, including some in public positions, that they are letting the passions get the better of them.
In one instance a Republican Congressman from Louisiana told a network of radio stations that someone "wearing a diaper on his head" should "expect to be interrogated in the investigation of terrorist attack."
"If I see someone (who) comes in that's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over," Congressman John Cooksey said, in remarks that he has refused to withdraw despite protests from minority groups.
"When you've got a group of people who are not American citizens, who are of Arab descent and they were involved in killing 5,000 Americans. ... I think we can and should scrutinize people that fit that profile until this war on terrorism is over," Cooksey maintained.
One report said for many Arabs, such remarks are beginning to invoke the expression "Flying While Arab," a reminder of the African American complaint of being stopped for "Driving While Black."