British Muslim teacher escorted off US flight hopes it was a mistake

February 24, 2017

Feb 24: A British Muslim teacher planned to accompany his students on a school trip to the American city of New York, but little did he know that he would be denied entry to the United States.

British
Juhel Miah, 25, a math teacher, was escorted off the flight by American officials, thinking he was singled out because of his religious affiliation.

Miah was born in Birmingham and brought up in Swansea, said that he felt humiliated due to the treatment by American officials.

Both Miah and Llangatwg community school, near Neath, south Wales, are calling for an urgent clarification from the American authorities.

“No one could give me an explanation,” Miah said. “The only thing I can put it down to, unfortunately – I hope I'm wrong – is because I'm a Muslim. That's all I can put it down to. I hope that's not true.

“I'm not an angry type of person,” he told the UK's Guardian newspaper. “I don't get easily worked up; otherwise, I wouldn't be a teacher. But I was definitely angry. It hit me the hardest was when I was being escorted off the plane. Everyone was looking at me.”

Being targeted in front of not only passengers, but also the school's children and fellow teachers made Miah uncomfortable.

“It made me feel so small as if I had done something wrong, as if I am a criminal,” he said. “Everyone must have been thinking that – even the kids from my school. I hope not but that's what was going through my head. I didn't know where to look.”

The math teacher, whose parents are of Bangladeshi origin, argued that what happened to him should not be encountered by anyone.

The Welsh first minister, Carwyn Jones, has written to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson asking for “urgent clarification.” The US has not commented.

Miah was one of other five teachers who were accompanying a party of 39 children to New York via Iceland last week.

While the party was catching their plane on to the United States, the problems started to emerge at Keflavík International Airport near Reykjavik.

“I gave one of the American officials there my passport. My first name is Mohammed. It felt as if straight away she looked up and said: ‘You've been randomly selected for a security check.' ”

Miah followed the American officials' instructions and followed her to a room. “There were five or six other officials. Two of them checked me. They made me take my jacket off, my hoodie off, they opened my bag, and I took my shoes off. They made me stand on a stool. They rubbed me all the way down. They even pulled my trousers down to check my boxers. They rubbed their hands under my feet. They got a swab and wiped me all over. Eventually, they let me go through.”

Miah, who has a degree from Swansea University, could see out of the corner of his eye an American official coming toward him while he was helping the eight students he was in charge of to settle. “She asked: ‘Are you Mohammed Miah? You need to come with me.' ” Miah was taken to the front of the plane and escorted off. “'I've just received a phone call. You are not allowed to go to New York and you are not allowed to be on this plane,' the official told me.”

The teacher was not given any explanation as to why he was escorted, despite being a British citizen with a valid visa.

Vouchers for a taxi and a hotel were all that have been given to Miah that day in compensation to what happened to him. He was made to wait outside the American embassy in Reykjavik in the rain the next day upon his arrival. “The security guard stopped me, took my passport, came back 10 minutes later. He didn't want to know. He gave me a card with three numbers on. There was no answer from the first number and the others did not ring out.”

The school made necessary arrangements for Maih to fly back to the United Kingdom. “I was going through everything. I was thinking have I said something on social media but I'm very careful because I'm a teacher,” he thought to himself while waiting to return home.

Neither Miah nor his family has ever been to any of the seven Muslim-majority countries listed in Trump's travel ban — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya.

“My brother flew to Florida last year. I still can't pinpoint why me,” Miah wondered.

“I hope this isn't true, I really don't want this to be true but it all started with the first American official I met and the moment she read Mohammed.

Despite the unpleasant incident, Miah still wants to go to America one day. “I just hope it boils down to human error and someone says sorry,” the teacher said.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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A teenager who led over 100 people to safety during Friday’s terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall, has been hailed as a hero. 15-year-old Islam Khalilov, who worked part-time in one of the cloakrooms at Crocus City, recounted the events of the tragic evening to the Ruptly video agency.

The concert venue situated just outside of Moscow was packed ahead of a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic, when a group of terrorists armed with assault rifles forced their way into the building. They fired indiscriminately at fleeing people and then set the concert hall on fire.

According to the latest estimates, the attack has claimed the lives of at least 137 people, with about 180 injured.

Khalilov told the video agency that “it was when people started running from the escalator, from the stairway” that he realized that an emergency was occurring. The teenager said that he was acting on “instincts” at the time and used his thorough knowledge of the premises to quickly arrange visitors’ evacuation toward another building within the Crocus City complex.

“I started shouting all across the foyer, all across Crocus City Hall - ‘Folks, there’s a shooting! All run to the expo!’ – and I was showing where they had to go and was helping everyone,” he explained.

According to the cloakroom attendant, “there was a stampede, and everyone was in shock at first. No one knew what to do and where to go.”

Khalilov added that he himself was running behind the entire group to make sure he had not left anyone behind.

The teenager admitted to being “really scared” all along, but still managed to make the right use the instructions he’d previously been given on how to evacuate patrons in case of an emergency.

He told Ruptly that, at one point, he had caught a glimpse of one of the terrorists.

“I saw one, [he was] bearded and in green fatigues, he was walking around with an assault rifle,” the teenager recounted.

He also recalled seeing a man getting fatally shot by one of the assailants, adding that he “can’t stop thinking about it.”

The 15-year-old said he doesn’t consider himself a hero, and that he was just doing his job.

Explaining what helped him overcome fear, Khalilov reasoned that “It’s better to sacrifice yourself than to let a hundred people die.”

After Khalilov’s feat had been reported-on by several Russian media outlets, his favorite football club, FC Spartak Moscow, invited him to a meeting where he was presented with free passes to their matches.

Popular Russian rap artist Morgenstern said he had transferred 1,000,000 rubles ($11,000) to the teenager – something that Khalilov has confirmed to media.

The leader of Russia's Muslims, Mufti Ravil Guynutdin, has announced that Khalilov would receive a medal for his bravery.

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News Network
March 16,2024

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Ottawa, Mar 16: An Indian-origin couple and their teenage daughter were killed in a "suspicious" fire which tore through their home last week in Canada's Ontario province, police said on Friday.

A fire engulfed a home at the Big Sky Way and Van Kirk Drive area of Brampton on March 7, a press release by the Peel Police said.

After the blaze was put out, investigators located what was believed to be human remains within the gutted house, but the number of people killed couldn't be ascertained at the time.

The charred remains were on Friday identified as those of three family members: 51-year-old Rajiv Warikoo; his wife, 47-year-old Shilpa Kotha; and their 16-year-old daughter, Mahek Warikoo.

Police said that they resided at the address before the fire.

Peel police Constable Taryn Young on Friday said the fire had been deemed suspicious, the CTV news channel reported.

"At this time, we are investigating this with our homicide bureau, and we are deeming this as suspicious as the Ontario Fire Marshal has deemed that this fire was not accidental," the report quoted Young as saying.

"There's not much left to it," Young said when asked about the possible cause of the fire.

"Looking into something like that as a fire marshal, I'm sure it's very tough when there is not much left to look at. But we are exhausting all avenues," she said.

The deceased family's neighbour, Kenneth Yousaf, said that the family had lived on the street for about 15 years, and he never noticed any problems with them.

Yousaf said he was alerted to the fire last week by a family member, who heard a big "bang." "When we came out, the house was on fire. So sad. Within a few hours, everything was down to the ground," the report quoted Yousaf as saying.

In a press release, police said they are continuing to investigate the deaths of the three family members and urged anyone with information to come forward.

"The circumstances surrounding the house fire remains the focus of an active investigation, and anyone with information or video footage (dashcam or otherwise) is urged to contact Homicide detectives," police said.

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News Network
March 28,2024

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Russia says it is "extremely hard to believe" that Daesh could have staged the recent hugely deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that the country's intelligence and security officials have blamed on Ukraine and its Western backers.

Four gunmen burst into the Russian capital's Crocus City Hall on Friday and began shooting at the people, who were attending an event. The Takfiri terrorist group has allegedly claimed responsibility for the massacre that killed at least 143.

Speaking on Wednesday, however, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cast that claim into serious doubt.

"In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she said.

The chief of the Russian internal intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov has suggested that not only Ukraine, but also the United States and Britain might have been behind the shooting.

The Russian Federal Security Service has also said the gunmen planned to travel to Ukraine, where they were to be welcomed as "heroes." The FSB said Western intelligence services aided the attackers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also suggested that Ukraine stood to derive benefit from the attack and that Kiev might have played a role.

He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.

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