Following up on Mar. 15 and before that Dec. 6: “Lawyers and a Muslim group say they will defend at no cost airline passengers caught up in a lawsuit between a group of imams and U.S. Airways if the passengers are named as ‘John Does’ and sued for reporting suspicious behavior that got the Muslim clerics booted from a November flight. … Gerry Nolting, whose Minnesota law firm Faegre & Benson LLP is offering to represent passengers for free, says the judicial system is being ‘used for intimidation purposes’ and that it is ‘just flat wrong and needs to be strongly, strongly discouraged.'” Also offering help is “Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix-area physician and director of American Islamic Forum for Democracy — a group founded in 2003 to promote moderate Muslim ideas through its Web site — [who] told The Washington Times his group will raise money for legal fees for passengers if they are sued by the imams.” (Audrey Hudson, “Muslims offer to help ‘John Does’ sued by imams”, Washington Times, Mar. 21).
Flying-imams case: sued passengers may get help
Following up on Mar. 15 and before that Dec. 6: “Lawyers and a Muslim group say they will defend at no cost airline passengers caught up in a lawsuit between a group of imams and U.S. Airways if the passengers are named as ‘John Does’ and sued for reporting suspicious behavior that got the Muslim […]
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Good on them.
What ever happened to “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”? Since when did air travel become a right? In any other context this would be called extortion, but throw religion or race into it and it becomes discrimination. They know that they have no chance of obtaining money from the passengers mentioned in the lawsuit. They are in there just to try to improve their chances of obtaining money from US Air.
I don’t think it’s extortion, for the simple reason that money is not their objective. It’s intimidation, pure and simple, with maybe a small side order of extortion as a cover.
well, considering that at one of the multitude of press conferences held by the imams and CAIR, that the threat of a lawsuit against the passengers who reported the behavior was repeatedly mentioned, I say that it’s a good move for groups to come forward to support the passengers.
I’m especially having difficulty understanding how blatantly CAIR can behave in this manner without a single eyebrow being raised. Then again, considering some of the other overly-litigious groups out there, I suppose we’ve merely become numbed to the concept.
Would someone like to enlighten me on how this can possibly be a case of discrimination on the part of the passengers? What discrimination law did the passengers violate? Did they refuse to hire them based on their religion or ethnicity? Even if they deliberately reported the Imams because they don’t like Muslims, as far as I know there is no discrimination law that covers that situation. In other words, Isn’t this a bogus charge that is being done to harass the passengers for reporting them?
Good point, richard. Wouldn’t it be great if the “John Doe’s” were able to invoke a “whistleblower” type of recovery against the IMAMS?
Wouldn’t it be fair to say, that based on the recorded messages played thorughout airport terminals every fifteen minutes instructing passengers to report suspicious packages, luggage, and people that the John Doe’s were fulfilling a duty created by the federal government?
It’s discrimination in the fact that the race card is currently in play. As we’ve learned through countless examples, the majority of the populace has a knee-jerk reaction when it’s played. As per the CAIR playbook, if you can’t attack the case, attack the race.
Once again, the amusing part is who the “John/Jane Does” are, namely a rather multi-cultural group. My favorite amongst the lot being an Arab-born citizen who is also a qualified Arabic translator; she took rather copious notes as to what some of them were saying, which is why despite not getting a lot of press, FLEO is still investigating the actions of these imams.
The flight crew and passengers should sue the Imams for:
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress!
A slam-dunk winner.
RDX