A Muslim student kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for speaking Arabic during a phone conversation has sued the US carrier for discrimination.
A lawsuit filed in the US District Court alleges Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, an Iraqi refugee who is an American citizen, was thrown off the plane after talking to his uncle in Baghdad in Arabic while waiting for the airline to complete boarding.
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Makhzoomi, at the time a public policy student at the University of Californa Berkeley, was telling his uncle he had just met and had dinner with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“Shortly after taking his seat, Mr. Makhzoomi was approached by a Southwest Airlines official and local law enforcement officers, removed from the plane, interrogated, searched, publicly humiliated, and denied further travel on the airline,’’ said the lawsuit, filed with the assistance of Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“Southwest Airlines discriminated against and wrongfully removed Mr. Makhzoomi from his flight for no reason other than for speaking in his native language.
“In doing so, the airline, by and through its agents and employees, intentionally violated Mr. Makhzoomi’s civil rights.”
The lawsuit alleges a Southwest employee admonished Makhzoomi for talking in Arabic and asked about the conversation.
Makhzoomi explained he was talking to his uncle to his uncle about the conference to which the agent allegedly replied: “Why are you talking in Arabic? You know the environment is very dangerous”.
He was removed from the plane and made to stand in a corner for 45 minutes before being “aggressively patted down and invasively searched in front of a crowd of onlookers and half a dozen police officers, including a K-9 unit”.
He was subsequently interrogated by the FBI before being cleared after hours of questioning.
The complaint said an FBI officer told him: “Well, I think you’re done with Southwest. Next time you are flying, don’t use your phone, just sit there, and I advise you to apologize to Southwest.”
Southwest refunded the man’s ticket but refused to book him on another flight.
“Southwest Airlines removed Mr. Makhzoomi from a flight and turned him in to local and federal law enforcement for no reason other than his spoken language,” said Zahra Billoo, CAIR-SFBA executive director. “What Mr. Makhzoomi experienced is the essence of religious profiling, and every Muslim airline passenger’s worst nightmare.”
Southwest told CNN in 2016 its staff investigated “potentially threatening comments” made by Makhzoomi.
"We wouldn't remove a passenger from a flight without a collaborative decision rooted in established procedures," the airline said at the time. "Southwest neither condones nor tolerates discrimination of any kind. Our company could not survive if we believed otherwise.”
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