Arabic T-shirt causes scare
2006-08-31 10:52
New York - An Arab human rights activist says he was prevented from boarding a plane at Kennedy International Airport while wearing a T-shirt that said "We will not be silent" in English and Arabic.
Raed Jarrar, who is half Iraqi and half Palestinian, said he was preparing to board a JetBlue flight to Oakland, California, on August 12, when four officials stopped him at the gate and told him he could not get on the plane wearing his shirt.
Jarrar, 28, who directs the Iraq project for Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights organisation, said he asked what law he was breaking by wearing the shirt.
Punishment
The officials did not answer, he said, but suggested that he turn the shirt inside out.
One of the officials told him, "Going to an airport with a T-shirt in Arabic script is like going to a bank and wearing a T-shirt that says 'I'm a robber'," he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
"I refused to take off my T-shirt and put it on inside out because it looks like a punishment for something I have not done," he said.
Plot to blow up planes
In the end, the officials gave Jarrar another shirt to put over the offending T-shirt and he put it on rather than miss his flight.
Jenny Dervin, a spokesperson for JetBlue, acknowledged that the dispute occurred and said the airline was investigating it.
She noted that the incident occurred two days after British authorities announced that they had foiled a plot to blow up jetliners over the Atlantic.
'I was silenced by the state'
Jarrar, who moved to the United States last year from Jordan, said he has filed a complaint with JetBlue and is considering legal action. He said he would like, at a minimum, for JetBlue to apologise.
"We Will Not Be Silent" is a slogan adopted by opponents of the war in Iraq and other conflicts in the Middle East.
"It's ironic," Jarrar said. "I was silenced by the state."
- AP