Democracy Now
AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar joins us in a studio in San Francisco, the Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange. He is an Iraqi blogger and architect, who runs a popular blog called "Raed in the Middle." Before we talk about the latest in Iraq, Raed, I wanted to ask you about -- well, starting at the end, your trip home, how you made it back to the United States.
RAED JARRAR: I made it back to the United States in a very easy way. In fact, the incident that happened in JFK was not related to my trip, because I went back to D.C. I spent a day in D.C. Then I took the bus to New York. I spent a couple of days in New York. There was an event there. Then I was supposed to take my airplane, my Jet Blue airplane from JFK to Oakland in California last Saturday. So I went to the airport in the morning, and I was prevented to go to my airplane by four officers, because I was wearing this t-shirt that says “We will not be silent” in both Arabic and English. And I was told by one of the officials that wearing a t-shirt with Arabic script in an airport now is like going to a bank with a t-shirt that reads, “I am a robber.”
AMY GOODMAN: That's what the security said to you?
RAED JARRAR: Yeah. I was questioned by four officials from -- I think some of them were from Jet Blue and others were maybe policemen or FBI. I have no idea. I took their names and badge numbers, and I filed a complaint through ACLU against them, because I asked them very directly to let me go to the airplane, because it's my constitutional right as a U.S. taxpayer and resident to wear a t-shirt with Arabic script. And they prevented to let me exercise this right, and they made me cover the script with another t-shirt.
AMY GOODMAN: So they said you could not fly if you wore your t-shirt that said, “We will not be silent”?
RAED JARRAR: Yes. They said that very clearly.
AMY GOODMAN: I was just looking at another piece in the Daily Mail of Britain, which says, “British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny -- refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed. The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic. Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus […] minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for [another flight] in the departure lounge refused to board it [until the men speaking Arabic were taken off the plane].”
RAED JARRAR: And, Amy, there was a similar story from San Francisco last week, with a Canadian doctor called Ahmed Farooq, who was prevented to complete his airplane, because he was praying in his seat. So, I think, you know, these incidents are increasing, because of the latest alleged terror attack.
AMY GOODMAN: Also in this article it talks about others, as you were just talking about. “Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were […] reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.” Raed Jarrar, let's talk about the larger context right now of the Middle East and what’s happening. Can you talk about your trip, why you went on this CODEPINK-sponsored trip to Amman, what you learned there? And then we'll talk about the latest in Iraq.
