Profiling of
American Muslim Official Shows Pattern of Harassment: Attorney
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Attorney
Stanley Cohen, with Mohammed Ali Khan, states that his
client was racially profiled at the airport in Las Vegas, Nevada |
By
Ayesha Ahmad, IOL Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON,
Aug 7 (IslamOnline) - The racial profiling of an American Muslim at a
Nevada airport last month is part of a spreading pattern of harassment
of Muslims across the country, attorney Stanley Cohen said during a
press conference Tuesday, August 6.
"Profiling
has become the law of the day," said Cohen, a well-known New
York-based lawyer who recently filed a suit against Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, U.S. President George W. Bush, and other U.S.
and Israeli officials, on behalf of some Palestinian-Americans.
"Patterns
of harassment, surveillance and detention are a given now," he
added. Cohen and his client were speaking at a news conference hosted
by the American Muslim Council (AMC), a Washington-based American
Muslim advocacy group.
The
profiling victim, Muhammad Ali Khan, is a U.S. citizen and investment
banker, who also serves as the treasurer for AMC's board of directors.
At the time of the profiling incident, he was attempting to board a
Northwest Airlines flight home to Chicago from McCarran International
Airport in Las Vegas.
Less
than a month ago, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director
Robert Mueller spoke at AMC's annual convention in Washington, where
Khan met and shook hands with him. Cohen called it "perverse, if
not bizarre" that only a few weeks later Mueller's agents
"were profiling… a man for having the name Ali Khan."
Cohen
told reporters that Khan was on AMC business in Las Vegas, and noted
that his round-trip ticket had been paid for by credit card -
suspicions are usually aroused by one-way tickets paid for with cash
after some of the September 11 hijackers purchased their tickets in
that manner.
Khan
arrived nearly two hours early for his 4:05 pm flight; at the ticket
counter, the Northwest worker scrutinized his ID cards and told him to
wait while they fixed the computer, Cohen said.
Within
a few minutes, however, officers from the Las Vegas police department
arrived and surrounded him, taking him into custody. Khan told
reporters that he was informed, "You are being detained
now."
He
was then escorted through the airport, which he said was a humiliating
experience with "the whole airport… watching… I felt like I
was wearing a scarlet letter." He was taken to a "back
room," where FBI agents soon joined Las Vegas police officers.
"I
kept saying to myself - in America? This is happening?" he told
reporters.
The
officers were polite, he said, although one did nothing but stare at
him, and he admitted that he had certainly felt fear as he was
surrounded and detained, and again when the federal agents arrived.
He
was asked if he had ever left the country and for what reason, if he
had ever been arrested, why he was traveling and where he had stayed
in Las Vegas.
"I
felt like a criminal… but I answered all his questions," Khan
said.
The
FBI questioned him for a little over ten minutes, and he was escorted
back to his gate with 20 minutes left before the flight was to take
off. The FBI agents left him there, but a Las Vegas police officer
remained with him as he discovered that the airline refused to allow
him on the plane and had already made "other arrangements"
for his travel.
Cohen
said that Northwest Airlines had "a history" of profiling
incidents since September 11, saying he had received calls from other
attorneys about similar cases.
Khan
denounced his profiling as an obstacle to what AMC and other Muslim
organizations were trying to accomplish in integrating Muslims into
American society, saying, "To reach and build partnerships, you
cannot treat an American Muslim like this."
"The
incident that occurred to me at the Las Vegas airport was quite
humiliating," Khan said, reminding reporters that only recently
he heard the president say, "If one American suffers, we all
suffer."
"President
[George W.] Bush, the American Muslims are suffering," he said.
"Are we all suffering?"
In
response to a question regarding Cohen's controversial stances -
including his representation of a political leader in the Palestinian
resistance movement Hamas - Khan defended his attorney, saying,
"I see him as a civil rights advocate, and that's what this is
about - civil rights and civil liberties."
When
asked if he believed that profiling was at all necessary to prevent
more terror attacks, Cohen said, "It probably drives more
middle-class people closer to terrorism… It does nothing. Everyone
who knows the industry knows it does nothing."
Khan
said that this was actually his third encounter with racial profiling.
Twice since September 11, he has been profiled in traffic stops. With
this third incident, he said, "enough is enough."
Cohen
said that they would be filing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit within
the next four to six weeks against the FBI, Northwest Airlines, and
the Las Vegas police department.
"[Khan
has] let these folks do it their way," he said. "Now he's
going to do it the American way.".
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