'Excuse me ʾImām, you're going to have to leave the plane.' Story out of Finningley, England:
Free-speech groups have condemned the detention of a British Muslim woman after a cabin-crew member reported her for “suspicious behaviour” while reading a book about Syrian culture on a flight to Turkey.
Faizah Shaheen, a psychotherapist in Leeds, was detained by police at Doncaster airport on 25 July, on her return from her honeymoon in Turkey. A Thomson Airways cabin-crew member had reported Shaheen on her outbound flight two weeks earlier, as she was reading the title Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline.
Police officers questioned Shaheen for 15 minutes under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, under which the police can detain individuals without grounds for suspicion of involvement in criminal activities, including terrorism.
Shaheen, whose work in the NHS includes efforts to stop radicalisation among young mental health patients, told the Independent she intends to make formal complaints against the police: “I was completely innocent – I was made to feel like a culprit … I couldn’t understand how reading a book could cause people to suspect me like this. I told the police that I didn’t think it was right or acceptable. I do question if … it would be different if it was someone who wasn’t Muslim.” (Dhuhr) Cont.
Story from - The Guardian
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