British Prime Minister David Cameron is to look into claims that US officials prevented a British Muslim family of 11 from flying to Disneyland for a planned holiday.
The issue is sensitive because US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has called for a temporary ban on Muslims visiting the US due to concerns about extremist attacks.
Stella Creasy, a member of the opposition Labour Party, on Wednesday said that US officials gave no explanation for refusing to allow her constituents to board a flight from Gatwick Airport on Tuesday last week, so she wrote to Cameron seeking his intervention.
She said there is “growing fear” among British Muslims that aspects of Trump’s plans are coming into practice, even though they have been widely condemned.
A top Muslim group said cases like this appear to be related to religion and are worrying for British Muslims.
Mohammed Zahid Mahmood said he and his family — two brothers and their nine children — were told nothing except that they were not allowed to travel to the US, despite having previously obtained clearance.
“We were the only family that was of Asian, Muslim, sort of appearance and it seemed a little bit embarrassing that only we were taken out [of the line to board],” he told the BBC.
Cameron’s office said on Wednesday that he would investigate the matter. He had earlier characterized Trump’s policy as “divisive and wrong.”
A US Customs and Border Protection spokesman said the “religion, faith or spiritual beliefs of an international traveler are not determining factors” when deciding if a person can travel to the US.
The spokesman said people can be denied entry for a variety of reasons, including health-related issues, prior criminal convictions, security concerns or on miscellaneous grounds.
Ajmal Masroor, a London-based imam and broadcaster, said he received similar treatment when trying to travel to the US for business.
He said that a US embassy official prevented him from boarding a flight on Thursday last week and told him his business visa had been revoked. He said he had never had any problem traveling on that visa before.
“I asked him why, repeatedly, and he said: ‘You must have done something wrong,’ without any explanation,” Masroor said.
He said he feared that US officials were singling out Muslims.
“This is absolutely discrimination. It is not acceptable and playing into the hands of the terrorists,” Masroor said.
The Muslim Council of Britain also said the last-minute denial of boarding privileges without explanation is distressing for Muslims.
“There is a perception that such decisions are being made due to the faith or political activism of individuals,” the council said.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS