UAE | General
UAE student falls victim to profiling
A UAE student was detained for 26 hours with his wife and three children at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday on the basis of yet to be revealed "suspicions", and got his US visa cancelled in the latest incident of singling out Arabs and Muslims in western airports for racial profiling.
- By Bassma Al Jandaly And Abbas Al Lawati, Staff Reporters
- Published: 00:00 August 24, 2006
- Image Credit:
- Saif (right) and his father Dr Khalifa Al Sha'ali hold Khalifa and Mohammad at a family gathering.
Dubai: A UAE student was detained for 26 hours with his wife and three children at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday on the basis of yet to be revealed "suspicions," and got his US visa cancelled in the latest incident of singling out Arabs and Muslims in western airports for racial profiling.
Saif Khalifa Al Sha'ali, 26, a nephew of Mohammad Hussain Al Sha'ali, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, told Gulf News that he was kept in detention by officials from the US Department of Homeland Security upon landing at the airport.
Al Sha'ali is a doctoral candidate in information technology at Claremont University in Los Angeles and a long-time resident of the United States. He was returning to Los Angeles via London from a vacation in Dubai.
After the detention and rigorous interrogation, Al Sha'ali managed to call a UAE Embassy employee and left a message.
He was eventually released at 5am UAE time on Wednesday upon intervention from the embassy but his American residence visa was cancelled.
The family was put on a plane back to London.
"I was treated like a criminal," Al Sha'ali said. His children spent the night on the floor in a room in which they were locked with their mother.
The wife was questioned for hours separately. Al Sha'ali is still puzzled by the incident but stressed he would never go back to the United States but rather pursue his studies elsewhere.
Relatives described the incident as part of the paranoia that has gripped many Western countries following the uncovering of an alleged plot in the UK to blow up US-bound planes two weeks ago.
It also comes in the wake of several incidents in the West where Arabs were believed to have been racially profiled.
This week, two Muslim students were forced off a British flight in Spain because other passengers feared they were terrorists after hearing them speaking in what was claimed to be Arabic.
Earlier, a UAE national couple was stopped twice by a security guard before being allowed to ride on the London Eye. The couple claimed they were profiled for being Arabic speakers.
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