A student talking to a relative in Arabic on the phone was pulled of a Southwest Airlines flight earlier this month.
Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a 26-year-old senior at the University of California-Berkeley, was taken off a flight heading to Oakland from Los Angeles International Airport on April 6. Makhzoomi is an Iraqi refugee who came to the United States in 2010 with his family.
According to a report, Makhzoomi had called his uncle in Baghdad to tell him about an event he had just attended where he saw United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speak.
A nearby passenger reported Makhzoomi to the crew when she said she heard him making “potentially threatening comments,” the airline said in a statement.
Then, a Southwest Airline employee asked Makhzoomi why he was speaking Arabic before escorting him off the plane. He was then questioned by the FBI in a private room until they determined no further action was necessary and allowed him to return to the terminal.
Makhzoomi booked a new flight on Delta Air Lines and arrived in Oakland roughly eight hours after he originally planned.
“We regret any less than a positive experience a customer has onboard our aircraft,” Southwest said in a statement to The New York Times. “Southwest neither condones nor tolerates discrimination of any kind.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said there have been at least six cases of Muslims being pulled off flights so far this year.
“My family and I have been through a lot, and this is just another one of the experiences I have had,” Makhzoomi said. “Human dignity is the most valuable thing in the world, not money. If they apologized, maybe it would teach them to treat people equally.”
