Three British Muslim siblings were removed from a plane and questioned on the tarmac by armed police officers after passengers falsely accused them of being Islamic State supporters.
Maryam Dharas (19), Sakina Dharas (24), and Ali Dharas (21), had boarded the easyJet flight from Stansted to Naples when they were approached by a cabin crew member and asked to accompany her off the aircraft without explanation.
In full view of the passengers on the plane, the trio from north-west London were grilled for an hour by officers, who first asked them: “Do you speak English?”
Maryam, who will begin an English degree at King’s College London later this year, said she, her brother and sister were born and raised in London, as was their mother, and they only spoke English.
Racial profiling
Maryam said it was clear that she and her sister, a clinical pharmacist at University College London, had been subjected to racial profiling. They were both wearing headscarves at the time.
Before being allowed back on to the flight, Sakina was told that further background checks would be conducted and officers would be waiting when the plane landed if any evidence were found.
She said: “I would like an apology. What happened was wrong. This kind of profiling shouldn’t take place. I don’t want this to happen again to anyone else.”
EasyJet has apologised for any inconvenience caused, but insisted that security concerns had to be investigated, while Essex police offered no apology and said the report from a couple on the plane that led to the incident was of “good intent”.
The family had chosen the Naples area, where they visited Pompeii, for a holiday as they had an interest in classical civilisations. They had taken their seats on the flight at about 6am on August 18th when they were approached by a cabin crew member, who demanded that they follow her off the plane.
“I asked her ‘where are we going, can you explain where you’re taking us?’ She doesn’t reply, she completely ignores me. We’re told to walk down the stairs – at the bottom we can see there’s armed policemen,” Sakina said.
The Dharas siblings, who are of Indian ethnic origin, were asked if they had Arabic text on their phones or copies of the Koran. They cannot speak, read or write Arabic.
“I was shocked, my sister was close to tears,” Sakina said. “The first thing the policeman asks us is if we speak English, which I personally find quite patronising. Just because we look ethnic. I don’t speak any other language but English.
“We’re told a couple had reported us having been reading Isis materials. [THEY SAID]the pair of us, meaning me and my sister, had been reading Isis material. My sister and I wear headscarves. We thought, there’s clearly profiling going on here.
“We were just in shock. What is going on? None of us have been doing that. We’re absolutely flummoxed.
“We were asked ‘have you had any Arabic on your phone? Have you been reading the Koran?’ We don’t even speak Arabic, we don’t know Arabic, we’re not even Arabs.”
The passengers who complained had incorrectly claimed that the women had a reference to the phrase ‘praise be to God’ on one of their phones.
‘Offensive and hurtful’
Maryam had been using her phone on the plane to send messages via WhatsApp to her father, a pharmacist born in Uganda, and had been having a conversation about the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
Once off the plane, Sakina was separated from Maryam and Ali, and they were questioned by men in suits said to be from special branch.
Sakina had a passport stamp from a visit to Iraq, when she and Ali had taken part in a sponsored walk to raise funds for Isis victims.
The officers asked to see Maryam’s Twitter posts. “There was no evidence here,” she said. “We were being treated like criminals. The couple had lied and got away with it. It was offensive and hurtful. They tarnished our names in front of everyone on the flight, it was really humiliating.”
The siblings were allowed to return to the plane and offered an apology for the inconvenience. “It was a humiliating walk back on to the flight, it was awful,” Maryam said.
However, before they were allowed back on the flight, Sakina was warned by her interrogator that further background checks would be conducted while she was in Italy.
“This was bizarre because, if we’re not a threat and we’re allowed on the plane, we’ve all agreed this has been a lie, then what’s the need?” Maryam said. “They said ‘if we find anything, we’ll be waiting for you when your plane lands’. What kind of threat was that to make?”
The family returned on August 20th and nobody was waiting for them.
Sakina said: “What are my rights? We would only have been allowed back on the plane if there wasn’t a shred of doubt on their part, so someone must be the liar here; in which case, why were those passengers not removed for wasting police time, lying, making false allegations and racial profiling?”
Earlier this year, a British man was removed from an easyJet plane by armed police at Luton airport after a fellow passenger read a message on his mobile phone about prayer and reported him as a security threat.
Laolu Opebiyi (40), from London, said he was forced to hand over his phone and reveal his password in order to establish his innocence, after he tried to arrange a conference call prayer with friends using WhatsApp.
A detective subsequently questioned and cleared Mr Opebiyi, but the pilot refused to allow him back on to the flight to Amsterdam.
A statement from Essex police concerning the incident at Stansted said: “Essex police were contacted with reports of concern regarding the behaviour of three people who were looking at their mobile phones.
“Officers at the airport spoke to them and examined their phones with their consent. They were quickly able to establish that no offences had been committed and the women boarded their flight. We are satisfied the call was of good intent.”
A spokesman for easyJet said: “EasyJet can confirm that, following concerns raised by a passenger during the boarding, a member of ground staff requested the assistance of the police, who took the decision to talk to three passengers at the bottom of the aircraft steps, before departure.
“The police then confirmed to the captain that the passengers were cleared to complete their journey and they reboarded the aircraft and the flight departed to Naples.
“The safety and security of its passengers and crew is our highest priority, which means that if a security concern is raised, we will always investigate it as a precautionary measure. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to the passengers.”