Jarrar with his lucky t-shirt
$240,000 for this? Isn’t that a bit excessive? I am going to have to get one of these shirts for my next flight — Jihad Watch could use the money!
Meanwhile, the ACLU lawyer says: “The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling.” Great. I will be sure to call the ACLU for help to fight attempts by the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the UN to compel Western governments to criminalize free speech about the ways in which Islamic jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify their actions and make recruits.
Don’t you just know that they’ll be all over that?
“240,000 dollars awarded to man forced to cover Arab T-shirt,” from AFP, January 5 (thanks to all who sent this in):
NEW YORK (AFP) — An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded 240,000 dollars in compensation, campaigners said Monday.
Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York’s JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.
“The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling,” said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.
Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: “We will not be silent.”
He was told other passengers felt uncomfortable because an Arabic-inscribed T-shirt in an airport was like “wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, I am a robber,'” the ACLU said.
Jarrar eventually agreed to cover his shirt with another provided by JetBlue. He was allowed aboard but his seat was changed from the front to the back of the aircraft….