American Man in Limbo on No-Fly List

[alp227]

by Scott Shane, The New York Times (June 16, 2010), page A6

WASHINGTON — As a 26-year-old Muslim American man who spent 18 months in Yemen before heading home to Virginia in early May, Yahya Wehelie caught the attention of the F.B.I. Agents stopped him while he was changing planes in Cairo, told him he was on the no-fly list and questioned him about his contacts with another American in Yemen, one accused of joining Al Qaeda and fatally shooting a hospital guard.

For six weeks, Mr. Wehelie has been in limbo in the Egyptian capital. He and his parents say he has no radical views, despises Al Qaeda and merely wants to get home to complete his education and get a job.

But after many hours of questioning by F.B.I. agents, he remains on the no-fly list. When he offered to fly home handcuffed and flanked by air marshals, Mr. Wehelie said, F.B.I. agents turned him down.

“The lady told me that Columbus sailed the ocean blue a long time ago when there were no planes,” Mr. Wehelie said in a telephone interview from Cairo. “I’m an innocent American in exile, and I have no way to get home.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/world/middleeast/16yemen.html

Wow this no-fly list is some horse poop when even young kids are being targeted.

[saracat]

1. I agree but 26 isn't a "young kid" Ths is an adult.

[alp227]

2. My point was that young kids were also being targeted in addition to Muslims/Arabs

but I omitted that in my original post. sorry. The no-fly list=racial AND nominal profiling!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. I'd say he better book a boat

[Solly Mack]

4. more

"On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based group that has been working with Mr. Wehelie’s family, wrote to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to protest what its executive director, Nihad Awad, called “apparently illegal pressure tactics” against Muslim American travelers.

“If the F.B.I. wishes to question American citizens, they should be allowed to return to the United States, where they will be able to maintain their constitutional rights free of threats or intimidation,” Mr. Awad wrote.

Mr. Awad noted that Yahya Wehelie’s younger brother, Yusuf, 19, who was stopped with him in Cairo, faced a shorter but even more harrowing time in Egypt. Questioned first by the F.B.I., Yusuf was later held for three days by Egyptian security officers, blindfolded, chained to a wall and roughed up before being allowed to travel home May 12, he said in an interview."


k/r

[Solly Mack]

5. kick