SHAFAQNA- A Muslim civil rights advocacy group, the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), filed a complaint with Air Canada today, on behalf of a 12-year-old U.S. Squash Team player, Fatima Abdelrahman, who was allegedly forced to remove her hijab in public by the airline’s employees.
According to an official complaint letter sent to Air Canada from the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA), the incident took place on August 1, 2019.
An American-Islamic civil rights group said in a letter sent Friday that federal and state laws were violated when an Air Canada gate agent demanded that Fatima Abdelrahman remove her religious head covering.
Fatima Abdelrahman, 12, was standing in line at San Francisco International Airport waiting to board her flight to a squash tournament in Toronto with her fellow US National team members.
Abdelrahman was approached by a male-identifying Air Canada employee who allegedly told her to remove her hijab as part of the airline’s pre-boarding identification procedures.
The young squash player told the employee that “she wears the hijab because of her sincerely-held religious beliefs as a practicing Muslim, where she chooses to cover herself in front of men who are not related to her and more generally, in public.”, dailyhive reported.
Abdelrahman requested a private area so she could remove her headscarf in private and in the exclusive presence of female Air Canada agents, but the council says airline employees refused.
The August exchange became public when Abdelrahman’s older sister complained about the incident on Twitter.
Air Canada did not respond to an email seeking comment Friday, Associated Press told.
“CAIR-SFBA, along with our client, are committed to ensuring that in the future individuals hoping to travel with Air Canada or other airlines are not subject to differential treatment based on their religious beliefs and how they choose to observe their faith,” said CAIR-SFBA’s Civil Rights & Legal Services Coordinator Ammad Rafiqi.
“We hope Air Canada will show responsibility by coming to the table in good-faith to ensure that Fatima is made whole for having her right to privacy violated and the ensuing distress she felt during the trip”, according cair .
“There is a history of Muslims… being picked (out), specifically on these issues. And that’s our concern,” says Rafiqi.
He says most security screening is done by the TSA, which already checked Fatima’s passport and cleared her to fly. He says Air Canada violated U.S. and California law by not providing Fatima a private screening area.
“This is something Air Canada says is in their procedures, but either they don’t follow it, or it’s not something that’s in the training for their employees, and that’s the concern here,” says Rafiqi.
Fatima Abdelrahman has achieved a lot of firsts in her life. She ranked top five on the U.S. junior national squash team in her age group. And is the first national team member to compete wearing a hijab.
“It’s a part of me. It’s something that I wear every day. It’s part of my daily life. I am proud to wear it,” says Fatima, who just turned 13-years-old.
“I saw someone wearing a hat, but they weren’t asked to remove it. Not trying comparing the scarf and a hat. But still, it does cover your head. So why was I asked to remove it, and not them? So yeah, I did feel discriminated against”, abc30 told.