Category Archives: State Oppression

Muslim man returns to Oklahoma after being on U.S. ‘no-fly’ list

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A McAlester native returned from the Middle East to Oklahoma on Monday after being on the nation’s “no-fly” list.

Saadiq Long, a 43-year-old Muslim and U.S. Air Force veteran, arrived at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City about 6:30 p.m. Monday where he was greeted by his sister and officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Oklahoma chapter.

Long declined to talk to the media, citing exhaustion from the 36-hour trip. However, CAIR-Oklahoma representatives said he was overjoyed to be home.

NewsOK, 19 November 2012

Muslim man returns to Oklahoma after being on U.S. ‘no-fly’ list

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A McAlester native returned from the Middle East to Oklahoma on Monday after being on the nation’s “no-fly” list.

Saadiq Long, a 43-year-old Muslim and U.S. Air Force veteran, arrived at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City about 6:30 p.m. Monday where he was greeted by his sister and officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Oklahoma chapter.

Long declined to talk to the media, citing exhaustion from the 36-hour trip. However, CAIR-Oklahoma representatives said he was overjoyed to be home.

NewsOK, 19 November 2012

Oklahoma Muslim on no-fly list to return to U.S.

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On Monday, November 19, representatives of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) will meet a Muslim Air force veteran who had been barred from returning to Oklahoma when he finally arrives at Will Rogers World Airport.

“We welcome the positive development in this case and hope Mr. Long will not face any bureaucratic difficulties when he returns to his native land,” said CAIR-OK Executive Director Adam Soltani.

Following intervention by CAIR-OK, Saadiq Long, a U.S. citizen and Air Force veteran living in Qatar, was allowed to board a Delta Airlines flight (3316) due to arrive at 5:02 p.m. on Monday. He has been struggling to return home for six months after being denied boarding on two previous flights to visit his terminally-ill mother, apparently because he had been placed on a government no-fly list.

CAIR press release, 18 November 2012

See also “Oklahoman on ‘no fly’ list allowed to fly home”, KOCO.com, 18 November 2012

US Muslim placed on no-fly list is unable to see his ailing mother

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Saadiq LongIn April of this year, Saadiq Long, a 43-year-old African-American Muslim who now lives in Qatar, purchased a ticket on KLM Airlines to travel to Oklahoma, the state where he grew up. Long, a 10-year veteran of the US Air Force, had learned that the congestive heart failure from which his mother suffers had worsened, and she was eager to see her son. He had last seen his mother and siblings more than a decade ago, when he returned to the US in 2001, and spent months saving the money to purchase the ticket and arranging to be away from work.

The day before he was to travel, a KLM representative called Long and informed him that the airlines could not allow him to board the flight. That, she explained, was because the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had placed Long on its “no-fly list”, which bars him from flying into his own country.

Long has now spent the last six months trying to find out why he was placed on this list and what he can do to get off of it. He has had no success, unable to obtain even the most basic information about what caused his own government to deprive him of this right to travel.

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US Muslim placed on no-fly list is unable to see his ailing mother

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Saadiq LongIn April of this year, Saadiq Long, a 43-year-old African-American Muslim who now lives in Qatar, purchased a ticket on KLM Airlines to travel to Oklahoma, the state where he grew up. Long, a 10-year veteran of the US Air Force, had learned that the congestive heart failure from which his mother suffers had worsened, and she was eager to see her son. He had last seen his mother and siblings more than a decade ago, when he returned to the US in 2001, and spent months saving the money to purchase the ticket and arranging to be away from work.

The day before he was to travel, a KLM representative called Long and informed him that the airlines could not allow him to board the flight. That, she explained, was because the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had placed Long on its “no-fly list”, which bars him from flying into his own country.

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Mahdi Hashi has British citizenship revoked for ‘extremism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man from north London accused of being an Islamic extremist has had his British citizenship revoked.

Family and friends of Mahdi Hashi, 23, from Camden, claim the government acted because he had refused to become an informant for the security services.

Mr Hashi, from Camden, is currently thought to be in a jail in East Africa.

Revoking his nationality in the summer, the Home Office said he was considered a threat to UK national security due to his “extremist” activities.

The government has since made no further comment.

BBC News, 1 November 2012

See also “UK ‘discards own citizen who refused to spy on Muslims'”,Russia Today, 31 October 2012

New York Muslim trapped in Germany because of no-fly list

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Samir SuljovicA Queens man has been trapped in Europe for the last 17 days, says a civil rights group, because his name is allegedly on the no-fly list.

Samir Suljovic, 26, first tried to fly back home to New York from Vienna, Austria, on October 1. Airline agents told the New Yorker that he could not board a return flight at the request of his own government.

On Wednesday, the New York Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) issued a statement that demands that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) allow Suljovic to return home from his current location, Germany.

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Babar Ahmad’s family speak out over extradition ‘double standards’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The family of Babar Ahmad have spoken out following the Government’s decision to block the extradition of Gary McKinnon on human rights grounds.

Mr McKinnon, 46, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, was facing extradition and a lengthy jail sentence after he admitted “hacking” into US government computers but claimed he was looking for evidence of UFOs.

Home Secretary Theresa May today blocked the move citing McKinnon’s illness as the primary reason for not sending him to the United States.

Last week Tooting residents Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan, who also suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, were extradited to the US on terror charges despite being detained without trial for more than five years.

But the family of Mr Ahmad, reacting to today’s news, accused the Government of “double standards” and “old-fashioned racism”.

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Outrage in Russia over hijab school ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Several Muslim families pulled their daughters out of schools in Russia’s south after the girls were told they were not allowed to wear their hijabs, a top Muslim said on Monday.

The Mufti of the southern Stavropol region Muhammad-Haji Rakhimov said he had received complaints from several parents whose daughters were for the first time not being allowed into their schools wearing their hijabs. The situation resembles a “stalemate” because both the Muslim parents and school authorities refuse to budge, and several girls including second-graders have not been to school for two weeks now, he said.

“The parents of these girls are not letting them go to school, which can lead to the child welfare services taking them away,” Rakhimov said. He could not explain the authorities’ sudden change in school policies. “There have not been any problems before this month.”

He added that there were now “many girls” in the Stavropol region who were being kept out of school for this reason, and their parents were too poor to send them to private schools.

One such institution is a rural public school in the village of Kara-Tyube, close to the overwhelmingly Muslim region of Dagestan. The school’s list of rules posted on its website says that students’ appearance should be in line with the “business style used in a secular society, excluding provocative elements”.

News24, 15 October 2012