Criticism of The Imams
An editorial in Investor's Business Daily questioned whether the imams were "victims or provocateurs", and suggested that it is possible the incident was planned in advance to gain publicity for planned congressional legislation against profiling. The Muslim American Society also backed this legislation expected to be introduced by Representative John Conyers of Detroit. Denouncing "the provocative agenda of these imams," Debra Burlingame opined that "it is nothing short of obscene that these six religious leaders (…) chose to turn that airport into a stage and that airplane into a prop in the service of their need for grievance theater."
A former federal air marshal expressed the fear that the situation "will make crews and passengers in the future second-guess reporting these events, thus compromising the aircraft's security out of fear of being labeled a dogmatist or a bigot, or being sued," and that "Instilling politically correct fears into the minds of airline passengers is nothing less than psychological terrorism."
Steven Emerson accused the Islamic Center of Tucson, a mosque where Shahin served as president, of having "an extensive history of terror links."
Critics also noted Shahin's prior involvement with a similar case. Two Arizona college students and members of Shahin's mosque, Muhammed al-Qudhaieen and Hamdan al-Shalawi, were removed from an America West flight after making two attempts to open the cockpit. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the FBI suspected this was a dry run for the 9/11 hijackings. The students filed racial-profiling lawsuits against America West, now part of US Airways, with Shahin as their defense attorney
After the out-of-court settlement was announced in 2009, a USA Today editorial called the imams' lawsuit "troubling", and stated that the lawsuit's conclusion could lead "others to act out in hopes of cashing in", and might prevent "passengers from speaking up, or airline crews from acting, when they have reasonable suspicions."
Read more about this topic: Flying Imams Incident
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