Muslim student booted off of Southwest flight for speaking Arabic

RT – A university student who came to the US as an Iraqi refugee says he was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight after a fellow passenger became alarmed that he was speaking Arabic.

Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, said he called his uncle while waiting for his plane to take off from Los Angeles International Airport earlier this month. He wanted to tell him about a speech he had attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“I was very excited about the event, so I called my uncle to tell him about it,” the 26-year-old told The New York Times.

Makhzoomi told his uncle that he had asked a question about Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) at the event, and used the phrase“inshallah” (God willing) at the end of the conversation.

He said the woman sitting in front of him on the plane then began staring at him.

“That is when I thought, ‘Oh, I hope she is not reporting me’,” he said.

An Arabic-speaking Southwest employee then reportedly approached Makhzoomi, escorted him off the plane, and asked him why he had been speaking Arabic.

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