[Mowlana Vector]

AA

Move over Of Middle-Eastern Appearance, here comes F.W.M (Flying While Muslim ), courtesy of War On Terrorism.

... and don't be surprised to see more of this Religio-Racial profiling in this (bigoted, popular and vague ) simulacrum of global feardom


(Courtesy of Clay Bennett)


FURTHER READING

ISMA:
National consultations on Eliminating Prejudice Against Arab & Muslim Australians

Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations(FAIR):
Discrimination Reports

The Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee(AMPAC):
Special Reports

Muslims Fear Attack; Women Join Defence Classes

Communities Brace For Racial Hatred

Group Targets Racist Publications

The Gulf in Australia: Racism, Arab & Muslim Australians & the War Against Iraq

Dangerous Labels: Dog Whistle Politics & Journalism

Racism In Australia: Findings of A Survey on Racist Attitudes & Experiences of Racism (PDF)

Race For the Headlines: Racism & Media Discourse

Muslims In Australia: the New Disadvantaged?

ERACE: Islamophobia, Is It Racism?

UNSW: Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law
Terrorism and War Archive

Australia on Guard

Be Alert, Not Alarmed - Grins Replace Guns On Anti-Terrorism Ad

Pranksters Pester Terror Hotline

The Real Threat to Our Nation Is Hype, Not War

USA: Council on American-Islamic Relations(CAIR):
The Status of Muslim Civil Rights In the United States

Arab Americans Strongly Support Bill Banning Racial Profiling by US Customs

Impact of September 11 on Traditional Openness To Immigrants & Non-Immigrants

Muslim Stereotypes Challenged in US

Post 9-11: Attacks on American Muslims

UK: Muslim Public Affairs Committee(MPAC):
What Your MP Thinks of You

What Has Become of Britain's 500 "Terrorist Suspects"?

Religious Freedom Sacrificed on the Altar of the State

Muslims In Europe Face Widespread Abuse

Tougher Immigration Rules Target Muslims


(Source: "Alert and alarmed" David Pope, Paper, March 2003)
========================================================

Flying While Muslim
Source: The Wordspy (4 March 2004)

pp. At airports or on planes, the racial profiling of a person who is or who appears to be a Muslim.
Also: FWM.

Example Citation:
On Sept. 26, 2002, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was returning to Montreal from Tunisia when he was taken into custody at New York's Kennedy Airport.
Shackled and interrogated by INS, FBI and other agencies for several days, Arar repeatedly asked for an attorney, but was refused one. ...
Arar never was charged with a crime. But his real offense might have been simply FWM — flying while Muslim.
(Lawrence Swaim, "Laws need to change," The Argus (Fremont, CA), February 4, 2004)

Notes:
This phrase is a play on driving while black (or DWB), having a car pulled over (by a police officer) for no other reason than the driver is black. This in turn was a riff on driving while intoxicated (DWI), an actual offense. Some phrases similar to flying while Muslim are flying while Arab (1999) and flying while brown (2001).

Example Citation #2:
Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society said he used to worry about racial profiling as a driver who is black.
"Now I have to be concerned about flying while Muslim," he said.
(Stephanie Erickson, "Concerned about civil rights," Orlando Sentinel, December 15, 2002)

Earliest Citation:
"I've faced both kinds of profiling: driving while black and flying while Muslim," said the 28-year-old student. "If we get to the point where we begin curbing our civil liberties and the rights of certain people, I think the terrorists have won."
(Joyce Purnick, "Last Week, Profiling Was Wrong," The New Ytok Times, September 15, 2001 )
==================================================================

[Mowlana Vector]

Boeing Workers Classified By Nationality
By: Andra Jackson
The AGE (5 March 2004)

Aerospace giant Boeing Australia has been granted a legal exemption to discriminate against employees on the basis of nationality to allow it to meet US anti-terror requirements.

The exemption to the Equal Opportunity Act, granted by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal last December, allows the company and six Boeing (US) subsidiaries to demand employees provide details of their birth, nationality and citizenship.

In what is believed to be the first case of its type in Australia, foreign nationals employed by the company will be required to wear different identification and will have their computer and technology access restricted. The ruling also allows the companies to introduce colour-coded security badges to distinguish its Australian, Canadian and American employees.

Boeing told VCAT the exemption was necessary because the US State Department required that it not "transfer technical advice, defence articles or furnish defence services to any person who is not an 'Australian national' or US person".

The company could lose its American export market for up to three years if it refused to meet these conditions, it argued.

The term "Australian national" applies to people who are Australian citizens by birth, naturalisation or permanent resident visa.

VCAT deputy president Sandra Davis agreed with the company's assertion that it was in the community's interests to grant the application.

A similar exemption has been granted in Queensland and the company has an application under way in NSW.

But Liberty Victoria and the Victorian Trades Hall Council said the decision set a dangerous precedent.

Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Leigh Hubbard said the council had written to Attorney-General Rob Hulls to complain that the Victorian legislation was "obviously deficient" as it did not protect people on the basis of their country of origin.

Union officials were shown a US State Department list of eight countries, covering the Middle East, North Korea and China, whose nationals were "of concern".

State organiser of the Australian Manufacturing Union (metals) division, Victor Jose, said it did not "go down too well" to have employees of 10 to 15 years' standing, who were not Australian nationals, being questioned as to whether they were genuine employees or undercover terrorists.

But a Boeing spokesman defended the application. "The nature of our work means we need to know more about our staff than other companies," he said. The exemptions were "a non-negotiable part of doing business with American defence companies", he said.
=======================================

[Mowlana Vector]

Muslim Names Harm Job Chances
By: Hugh Muir
The Guardian (12 July 12, 2004)

Job applicants from minority communities, particularly Muslims, are still suffering widespread and overt discrimination from virtually every sector of the market, according to investigators.

Research into jobs advertised in commerce, sales, the media and leisure found that candidates with English-sounding names were nearly three times as likely to get an interview as those with names indicating that they might be Muslim. Applicants with names indicating they might be black Africans were half as likely to gain an interview as those with English names.

Investigators from BBC Radio Five Live sent off carefully-worded job applications using six fictitious names for 50 jobs.

These were sent to a variety of employers who had placed advertisements in newspapers and on recruitment websites.

The applications, submitted over a year, were written so as to ensure all the candidates appeared to have comparable qualifications and experience.

The jobs were in various parts of the country, as were the addresses given.

Researchers found that the white candidates - John Andrews and Jenny Hughes - were successful in getting interviews 23% of the time while the black African applicants - Abu Olasemi and Yinka Olatunde - had a 13% success rate. For Fatima Khan and Nasser Hanif, the Muslim candidates, the success rate was just 9%.

The general secretary of the TUC, Brendan Barber, called on the government to introduce new race regulation in the jobs market.

"Statistics as shocking as these suggest that many people recruiting for private-sector firms are harbouring inherently racist views," he said.

The research mirrored an exercise in the US last year where researchers from the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found US managers seemed to discriminate on the basis of names.

Shahistra Zamir, 21, a law graduate, says the same phenomenon plagues Muslims here. "I have been applying for placements and I find, along with many other people I know, that we have to write a lot more applications than other people simply to get the same result."

In some respects, the research is dispiriting for all jobseekers. Of the 294 applications, 183 received no reply at all.

==> Do ethnic minorities get a raw deal in the workplace? Today on BBC Radio Five Live and BBC Asian Network.
==========================

SEE ALSO
"FAIR-GO" WATCH: THE ISMA REPORT 2004

[La`Dee]

[Mowlana Vector]

Cabbies Given Sermon of Silence
By: Jill Singer
The Herald-Sun (30 June 05)

The draft code of conduct that proposes to ban Victorian taxi drivers from annoying passengers with talk of religion or politics presses just about every intolerance-button possible today.

As radio talk-back hosts are already aware, complaining about taxi drivers is a popular subject, guaranteed to fill air time with the requisite amount of indignation and outrage.

It seems everyone has a story of a taxi driver who is either terminally rude, sleazy or geographically compromised.

Add Islam to the mix and you've got a particularly potent recipe for cooking up social intolerance.

And Islam is precisely the target under this proposal, made clear by the Victorian Taxi Association's Neil Sach, who points to post September 11 tensions and passengers not wanting views or attitudes imposed on them (the association represents taxi operators, not drivers, who rarely own their vehicles).

Taxis have traditionally been one of our main forums for political debate: an opportunity to test our views and learn about the wider world.

Victoria's taxi drivers come from 70 different countries, places few of us will ever visit.

Importantly, for many non-Muslims, Muslim taxi drivers are the closest they ever get to Islam.

What a loss for society if these drivers are now muzzled, forced to stifle their speech in a so-called free country.

Of course there will always be people who seek to have their prejudices reinforced rather than challenged, who see a Muslim taxi driver and react with suspicion.

This is not just a problem in Australia but also in the US and Britain.

A popular method of demonising Muslim cab-drivers is to propagate the story that such drivers refuse to carry blind passengers accompanied by guide dogs because Muslims hate dogs.

Perhaps some Muslims do indeed hate dogs, as some non-Muslims might hate dogs, but you don't find the Koran instructing Muslims to engage in dog-vilification any more than you find the Bible doing so.

As one Muslim veterinarian in the US has pointed out regarding this matter, when a non-Muslim is cruel to an animal it's considered an individual's action, but when a Muslim does it, non-Muslims tend to see it as an Islamic practice.

There can be no doubt that anti-Muslim sentiment is being actively encouraged by various hate groups, which makes the very suggestion of silencing Victoria's taxi drivers all the more dangerous and offensive.

Many drivers already have to put up with enough from passengers without having prejudice against them entrenched.

By way of example, the following is just a small sample of views expressed on various online discussion groups, all related to Muslim taxi drivers:

WHAT would they do with a seeing-eye pig?

I DON'T enter a taxi driven by a Muzzie, period. I simply refuse. Insist on the next cab driven by a non-Muzzie!

MUSLIMS don't belong in the West. I for one want them and all like-minded out now!

THEY have demonstrated that they can not live with civilised people.

IT would be cruel to force a dog to share a taxi with a Muslim.

WHAT do they do with their blind people? Drown them at birth?

DOGS smell fear, so a dog is more libel (sic) to attack a Muslim than a human being.

MUSLIMS are much like the Nazis when it comes to disabled, crippled, or mentally handicapped people.

All these views, and more, have also been articulated in letters sent to me, some so extremely vulgar and foul that I won't repeat them.

Now, imagine what it must be like for the Muslim taxi drivers forced to transport the likes of people who express such ignorant bile.

FORTUNATELY, of course, most drivers and passengers treat each other decently.

But while there will always be a minority who behave obnoxiously, as we've already seen from how our racial vilification laws are being exercised, rules and regulations are not the answer to intolerance.

Education is.

And one of the greatest educations anyone can have is to take a taxi ride around Melbourne with an open mind and without Big Brother watching over you.

(jsinger@bigblue.net.au.)

Related: Cabbies Axed For Talking Politics
==============================

No Politics Please, it's Victoria

NSW cabbies will be free to talk about politics or religion with passengers despite moves in Victoria to gag drivers.

Transport Minister John Watkins said NSW would not follow Victoria in trying to stop taxi drivers talking to passengers about controversial issues that might provoke hostile reactions.

A Victorian Government taxi advisory committee recommended the gag last week, saying it was advisable as emotional reactions to political issues had increased after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. A draft report recommends that drivers who break the rules face retraining, a warning, suspension or cancellation of their licences.

Victorian Taxi Association chief executive Neil Sach said passengers wanted a ride, not a lecture. The Victorian Government has yet to receive the report.

Mr Watkins said there were no plans for a ban.

The editor of Cabbie magazine, Peer Lindholt, said Sydney drivers would be outraged by any such move.
=======================

FURTHER READING
Taxi Group Denies Gagging Drivers

Manners Compulsory, Guide Dogs Are Too

Cabbies Rude or Just Misunderstood?


RELATED THREADS
Muslims Soon To Be Discriminated In Australia?

"FAIR-GO" WATCH: The ISMA Report 2004

Aust Muslims vs. Catch the Fire Ministries Vilification Case

Any Tom, Dick Or Harry Can Beat Prejudice

Fear amd Fascination: The Other in Religion

Tomorrow's Islam - Myth Or Essential To Survial?

How to End Racism: Islamic Perspectives

True (Un)Aussie-101: The White-Multiculturalist Approach

Multiculturalism: The Australian Model

Book Tells How (Australian) Muslims Are Stereotyped

[Mowlana Vector]

The Stains on America's Welcome Mat
By: Amin Saikal*
The AGE (19 Nov 2005)

Welcome to the United States. This is the sign that greeted me on my arrival at Los Angeles airport earlier this month, as it had done during my many previous visits to the US.

Yet this time was nothing like the previous occasions. I was profiled for no other reason than the fact that I am a Muslim and had Iranian visas in my passport. I now do fear for the future of US relations with the Muslim world, more than ever before.

Since my previous trip to the US in late 2003, I was aware that a new US regulation had come into force to fingerprint and photograph visitors. As an Australian passport holder, with a five-year multiple-entry American visa, and as a frequent visitor to the US for many years, I had not expected anything more than this. But what naivety on my part.

At the passport control, I was instantly and bluntly reminded that I had a Muslim name and had visited Iran.

"What was the purpose of your visit to Iran?" the officer asked.

"I headed an Australian delegation to Tehran in May this year for a round of the Australia-Iran Dialogue," I replied.

What do you do?

"I am an academic with speciality on the Middle East and Central Asia".

Are you a professor or something?

"Yes, I am a professor."

Professor of what?"Political science."

What will you be doing in the United States?"I am here to attend a meeting of the international advisory board of the Princeton Encyclopaedia of Self-Determination at Princeton University and will return to the Australia in three days' time."

At this point, I was told to follow the officer to a meeting room for what was said to be "a few more questions".

Although the room was not intimidating, it immediately imposed a sense of isolation. As I waited to be questioned further, I was not given any idea about how long the process might take. When I asked for such information, I received a coy response: "I don't know."

Fortunately, in my case, the wait did not last very long. The officer informed me that she needed to consult another colleague on the matter. As her colleague nodded affirmatively, my passport was stamped and handed back with "Welcome to the United States".

The process took some 25 minutes. But it was not the length but rather the content of the episode that I found most discomforting. It was clear that I was profiled because of the mere fact that the officer at the passport control identified my first name "Amin" as a Muslim name and learned that I had visited Iran on more than one occasion over the past few years.

Otherwise, from everything else, the officer could have easily concluded that I was a scholar visiting the US as I had done on dozens of previous occasions — a fact that could have easily been established by noticing American stamps on my US visa.

I had become increasingly concerned about the reported profiling of Arabs and Muslims by the US and many of its allies over the past four years. But this was the first time that I was subjected to it directly. It could only remind me of the dreadful rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan who profiled Hindus because they were non-Muslim citizens of the country.

The US concern about security is understandable, but its profiling of whoever is an Arab or Muslim seems to reflect a disturbing mindset.

No wonder that it has enhanced anti-American anger among the Arabs and Muslims, and played right into the hands of radical Islamist opponents of the US to continue and expand their anti-American rage.

It is a pity that Washington and many of its allies still have not come to terms with the simple fact that the more you humiliate distinct social groups such as Muslims, the more you are likely to provoke them to challenge you.

It is at this point that one should also assume that the war on terrorism is lost, unless the US and its allies change their policy behaviour — in the same way that they expect the Muslim world to reform as the best way of creating a more just, stable and participatory world order.

*Amin Saikal is professor of political science and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University.
====================================

[Mowlana Vector]

MP Urges Check on Migrants' Religion

[Mowlana Vector]

Quote

A Role By Name for Reality TV Raids

According to the President of the Police Federation of Australia, the new anti-terror laws cannot be enforced without racial and ethnic profiling. But after talking to 3 journalists since 5am this morning, I am convinced some journos do some profiling of their own.

I wonder if a journo would have rung me up if my name was, say, Malcolm Thomas. Now of course, Malcolm Thomas is a good Aussie name. You wouldn’t expect someone with a name like Malcolm Thomas to give two hoots about terror or beards or hijabs or Lakemba. Or even baklava.

And isn’t Malcolm a lucky man. Because apart from a Guernsey to attend the PM’s Muslim Summit some months back, this President of the Islamic Council of Victoria never seems to get bothered at all by journos in search of a hot terror story.

Instead, some of them go for me. Why? Because my parents chose to give me this really terror-sounding name. Irfan Yusuf. How do you say that? Yes, I admit it. My name does sound a little exotic. No one could ever pronounce my name correctly. Is it “Ear Phone”? Or “Ephraim”? Or “I-Frame”?
...

[Mowlana Vector]

Quote

A Letter To Southwest Airlines

A frequent Southwest Airlines flyer questions their "match list" for Muslim-sounding names (including his) only to find out there's no federal policy to use one.
...

[Mowlana Vector]

God Is Fine, But Internet Users Take the Name of Allah In Vain

[Mowlana Vector]

Racial Abuse Victim Awarded $25,000

[Mowlana Vector]

Terrorist Jibe Sees Axe Fall on Jones

[Mowlana Vector]

Fear Of A Muslim Opinion

[Mowlana Vector]

Cabbies Fight Racial Taunts

Muslim cabbies – a major force in the South Australia industry – are hiding their identities to prevent racist attacks.

And they are demanding support to let them practise their religion, calling for a prayer room to be built at Adelaide Airport.

SA Taxi Council chief executive Peter Johns said this week Muslim drivers were not displaying their ID because of fear of reprisals.

"Their name may be Mohammed and they get two or three drunk thugs in the car and they use the name to get stuck into the driver," Mr Johns said.

"They may say: `How close a relation are you to Saddam Hussein?' "

Afghanistan-born driver Abdulhamed Faysal, 29, said many drivers would not put their IDs out, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights.

"When I put my ID out, I get too many problems," Mr Faysal said. "I get racism, discrimination for my name and background.

"The first question people always ask is: What religion are you? When you say Muslim, their attitude changes."

Sayed Ashna, 28, also born in Afghanistan, said he would quit in March after nearly five years in the industry because he had "had enough". "Once they see your ID and the name, straight away they start with a negative mindset," Mr Ashna said.

"Personally, I'm from Afghanistan and sometimes they say: `I hope there's no explosives in the car' or `Are you Osama bin Laden's cousin?' "


Taxi drivers at airport site where centre for taxi drivers will be built.
They are not happy that it won't contain a prayer room for Muslims.
Taxi drivers (front l-r) Sayed Ashna and Abdulhamed Faysal with (back l-r)
Shahidul Alam, Men Cao, Art Driemanis and Milan Mladenovic (president of
Adelaide Cab Drivers Association) (Source: Sunday Mail - 7 January, page 22)

Their concerns come amid calls for a permanent prayer room for Muslims at Adelaide Airport, with some cabbies praying on the footpath.

They want the prayer room included in a new taxi rest area that will be built next to the terminal in February.

The building – funded through the airport taxi levy paid by passengers to cab drivers – includes showers, toilets, and changerooms exclusively for use by taxi drivers. Mr Faysal said many Muslim cab drivers were having to sacrifice fares at the airport to either pray at home or at one of Adelaide's five mosques.

"There are many Muslim cab drivers and they need a place to pray, it only takes five to 10 minutes," he said.

"If we had a mosque here, it would be a well-used facility."

Islam demands its followers pray five times a day, including sunrise, midday and sunset.

The airport's departure lounge has a prayer room, but cabbies are forbidden from leaving their vehicles unattended at the taxi rank.

Melbourne Airport has had a covered prayer hall for eight years.

Mr Ashna said drivers were forced to pray outside the airport. "We do nearly 60 per cent of our jobs from the airport. If we know we can pray there, we wouldn't lose business and the airport wouldn't lose taxis," he said.

Milan Mladenovic, president of the Adelaide Cab Drivers Association, said at least a quarter of its 600 members were Muslim.

"We have obligations to help the migrants that come into the country and we want to cater for their needs," he said.

But Mr Johns ruled out a prayer room, saying there had been no formal approach for it.

Adelaide Airport Ltd managing director Phil Baker and corporate affairs manager John McArdle were on leave this week and could not be reached for comment.
===============================

SEE ALSO
Are we Burning Muslim Bridges?

It's Time to Make A Spiritual Attack

The Australian Muslims Demographic Watch: South Australia

[Mowlana Vector]

Australian Muslims and the OZ: Smearing Irfan

[Mowlana Vector]

Man Wins Suit in Airline Race-Profiling Case

[Mowlana Vector]

American Airline Apologises to Hajj Pilgrims



Muslims Say They'll Shun Northwest

[Mowlana Vector]

El Masri Makes Police Race Claim

[fatma]

Mowlana Vector, on Jan 10 2007, 08:23 PM, said:

Australian Muslims and the OZ:  Smearing Irfan

that cartoon is hilarious

[Mowlana Vector]

El Masri to Police: Just Say Sorry




Luke McIlveen: El Masri's Harassment Stings

[Kulazzi]

Article said:

Mr Mennilli said police were just doing their job and the community would think police were remiss if officers did not ask the men what they were doing there at that time of night.

Hold on, Mennilli has stated something here. He said: the community would think police were remiss if officers did not ask the men what they were doing there at that time of night.

I thought the police were asking for ID, not questioning them. I agree with his statement but it seems to be caught in the middle somewhere.

This post has been edited by Kulazzi: 16 April 2007 - 06:57 PM

[Kulazzi]

I don't think I made any sense.

[Mowlana Vector]

School Memo Delays 911 Call For (Muslim) Student