Pakistani Businessman Claims he Avoids Glasgow Airport

A BUSINESSMAN said he has stopped flying from Glasgow Airport because of the number of times he has been stopped and questioned by the police under powers designed to crack down on terrorism.

Mohammad Ashraf, chairman of wholesaler Bonanza, now flies from airports in England to avoid the “insult and embarrassment” of being pulled out of the queue and made to answer questions about his travel plans.

He said other members of the Asian business community had experienced similar “harassment” and were considering a similar boycott of the airport.

Police at Glasgow have come in for criticism for their use of Schedule Seven anti-terrorism powers, detailed in the Terrorism Act 2000, giving officers the right to stop and question airline passengers. It has been claimed officers use racial profiling when selecting people, overwhelmingly picking out travellers of Asian and Middle Eastern appearance.

Now Mr Ashraf has said he and his colleagues are fed up with being targeted and arrange to travel through airports where they are not singled out.

He said: “I’ve lost count of the times it has happened there, so I fly through Manchester or London when I have to travel internationally and I am never stopped at those airports.

“It’s hugely embarrassing and insulting when it happens. You are pulled to one side in front of everybody and asked all sorts of stupid and intrusive questions about where you have been and what you have been doing.”

Mr Ashraf, 51, was born in Pakistan and moved, aged two, to the UK with his family, describing himself as “bred in Scotland”.

He said passengers of European descent were not subject to the same scrutiny.

He added: “They ask all sorts of things about where I’ve been, what mosques I’ve been to and that kind of thing. Stuff that has no relevance to my business.

“There is no point in it. When my passport is scanned they should have my whole profile anyway, so there is no need for me to be constantly spoken to.”

During the summer, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill held a meeting in Glasgow with about 70 members of the Asian community to discuss their concerns about the way Schedule Seven powers were being used at travel hubs in Scotland.

He admitted there had been occasions when the powers had been used inappropriately, but said they were not deliberately used to target people because of their ethnicity.

But now members of his own party are questioning whether the police’s response is appropriate, with MSP Humza Yousaf calling for more effective targeting of the powers.

Mr Yousaf said: “The use of these powers at Glasgow Airport is clearly not intelligence-led, because the same people are being stopped time and time again. If people are being stopped eight or nine times then you would think something in the system would put an end to this.”

A Strathclyde Police spokesman said there were no formal complaints under investigation on the matter.

Assistant Chief Constable Colin McCashey added: “The threat from terrorism is very real. Schedule Seven of the Terrorism Act 2000 is a vital tool for tackling the threat.

“The service is constantly monitoring the manner in which these powers are utilised to ensure this vital work is conducted in a sensitive and professional manner that minimises undue distress to innocent members of the public.”

A spokesman for Glasgow Airport said: “Schedule Seven checks are a police matter and we therefore cannot comment.

“However, Glasgow Airport has worked, and continues to work, closely with various local ethnic minority groups to help highlight and explain the procedures involved in the security screening process.”

Source: The Herald

Humza still at it. Apparently he feels so secure about his position in Scotland that he is now stepping up to do his bit for the Muslim cause in Britain as a whole. Here he is in the Muslim News agitating for "British Muslims" (sic).

Humza Yousaf: the Hamas Connection

In a post yesterday, I mentioned that Humza Yousaf had been a director of the Scottish Islamic Foundation and that the Scottish Islamic Foundation had ties to Islamic extremists and had even introduced a man alleged to have been involved in terrorism, Mohammed Sahalwa, to officials of the Scottish government.

Now we have the proof that Humza Yousaf himself was personally involved in this. The graphic shows a screen capture documenting a meeting between SIF personnel, including Humza Yousaf, and Mohammed Sawalha. This establishes that Humza Yousaf had a personal acquaintance with Sawalha. The original web page is here.

This page has some excellent information on Mohammed Sawalha's background, some of it reproduced below.

In 2005, the Sunday Times reported:

Sawalha’s link with Hamas emerged after he was named as a co-conspirator in an American court case involving racketeering and conspiracy. Last week the cleric, who arrived in Britain 15 years ago and has been given indefinite leave to remain, said that he still supported Hamas, notorious for its suicide attacks in Israel.

Asked whether he supported the military activities of Hamas, he replied: "I have no comment on the question of military activity."

...According to US court documents, Sawalha was a leading militant in the early 1990s “in charge of Hamas terrorist operations within the West Bank”. The documents, from the federal court in Chicago, claim he met two of the three “conspirators” accused of laundering millions of dollars to finance Hamas activities, including the purchase of weapons.

Hamas was classified as a terrorist organisation by the UK government in 2003.

On Panorama, the BBC reported:

From London, Sawalha is said to have master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy. Wanted by Israel, he fled to London in 1990… In London, Sawalha is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah. Then, in January 1993, an operation Sawalha was involved in went badly wrong. Hamas would be forced to reorganise its funding arrangements. A senior Hamas man from America flew into London for instructions from Sawalha. Sawalha’s visitor was en route to the Palestinian territories. The two men travelled to Sawalha’s home. His visitor’s name was Mohammed Salah. Salah’s mission was to distribute funds. Sawalha told him who to meet in the Palestinian territories…. With Sawalha’s agreement Salah began distributing about a quarter of a million dollars to local Hamas operatives. Some was ear marked for military activities. Some for missionary dawah. More money was in the pipe line from his bank in Chicago. But the Israeli’s had been tracking him. Stopped at a check point as he left Gaza, Salah was arrested.’

How can Humza Yousaf complain about being stopped at airports when he has associations with known extremists?

Humza Yousaf Complains About Being Questioned at Airport

In the Herald yesterday, Humza was at it again - except this time he wasn't just complaining about Muslims in general being searched at airports; he claimed that he himself had been.

AN MSP has become the latest Muslim to be caught up by airport security checks while returning from holiday.

...Glasgow MSP Humza Yousaf was selected from among returning passengers at Edinburgh Airport while coming back from holiday with his wife Gail Lythgoe.

The SNP MSP stressed he was not seeking special treatment just because he was an elected public figure, but he said it demonstrated Schedule 7 stops had no basis in terms of security or intelligence and were based simply on skin colour.

“I was stopped coming into Edinburgh Airport returning with my wife from a break in Istanbul via Charles de Gaulle in Paris, our first holiday since our honeymoon a year ago.

“We were pulled aside, our passports were screened under Schedule 7 and we were asked where we had been and why we were there. It is the fourth or fifth time this has happened to me, but the first since I was married last year.

“My wife felt humiliated and I felt angry at this. Coming into Edinburgh Airport you should be thinking about whether your luggage is there rather than this kind of thing.”

He added: “The problem is that under Schedule 7 they don’t even have to have reasonable suspicion to stop you. It’s a shame. This is my home, my country. It’s where I was born, and I hope I would have a history of public service.

A history of public service? Is that a joke? He was appointed an MSP a few weeks ago and has spent all his time since then agitating on behalf of Muslims and against the interests of the Scottish people. A history of public menace more like.

“I don’t expect any preferential treatment from anyone else, but this demonstrates there is clearly no intelligence involved whatsoever, nothing other than the colour of your skin or the flight you are on. No-one else was stopped on our flight, so far as I could tell. I am not saying this is racist. It’s just that it isn’t led by good intelligence.”

In fact there are compelling reasons why Humza Yousaf's name should be right at the top of the airport security staff's list of suspicious characters.

Humza Yousaf's cousin, Osama Saeed, spoke admiringly of the terrorist leader Anwar Al Awlaki. Like Saeed, who also stood as a candidate for the Scottish National Party, Yousaf was a director of the Scottish Islamic Foundation, which had documented links to Islamic extremists.

The Quilliam foundation said this about these links:

Through the Scottish Islamic Foundation, Osama Saeed has given a platform to some of the most prominent Islamists in the UK. For example, the SIF has arranged on two occasions for Kemal Helbawy, the founder of the Muslim Association of Britain, and Alamin Belhaj, the head of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, to lecture young Scottish Muslims on Islam. On other occasions, Saeed’s SIF has given platforms to yet more foreign Islamists, including two senior members of the Brotherhood-linked Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the former head of the US branch of the Saudi-Wahhabi group the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY).

The Times reports that the Scottish Islamic Foundation arranged a "meeting between culture minister Linda Fabiani and Mohammed Sawalha, who is alleged to have directed terror operations in the West Bank."

Sawalha, president of the British Muslim Initiative, was named in US court documents as a leading militant in the early 1990s “in charge of Hamas terrorist operations within the West Bank”.

The documents alleged he met two “conspirators” accused of laundering millions of dollars to finance the group’s activities. In 2006, the BBC’s Panorama accused him of directing funds to Hamas’s armed wing.

The cleric, who arrived in Britain 17 years ago and was given indefinite leave to remain, has refused to denounce the terrorist group.

Muslims Agitate to Reduce Airport Security, SNP Colludes

Members of the Muslim community have criticised stop and questioning techniques used to help battle terrorism at airports.

Out of an audience of more than 60 people at least 18 said they had been questioned while at an airport.

Around eight people held their hand up when the audience in Glasgow was asked if they had been questioned more than four times.

Members of the audience at the public meeting said "offensive" questions, including whether they prayed five times a day, caused anger and could put people off contacting the police in the future.

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 empowers police to stop and question people at UK ports and airports without any need for "reasonable suspicion" that the person is engaged in terrorism.

The public meeting - held at Pollokshields Burgh Hall in Maxwell Park, Glasgow - was attended by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill; Faroque Hussain, a Detective Inspector for the Ports Authority; and Chief Superintendent Ruaraidh Nicolson from Strathclyde Police.

A 32-year-old man, who lives in the West End of Glasgow and wished not to be named, said he was questioned for 80 minutes after flying into Glasgow Airport in June 2009. Asked how he felt looking back on the questioning, he said: "I feel angry"

Detective Inspector Hussain, from the counter-terrorism and intelligence section, said since feedback from the community, officers at Troon harbour and Glasgow Airport and Prestwick Airport had undergone cultural awareness training and "enhanced interview" techniques.

But Mr Hussain's claim that officers no longer asked whether people prayed "five times a day" since he took up his post in August were challenged by members of the audience.

Chief Supt Nicolson said work with an independent advisory group, made up of people from the community, had also been listened to in the last year. He said the group along with 20 to 30 others had also visited Glasgow Airport to give feedback on approaches.

Source

Note the security staff have now been forced to undergo 'cultural awareness' training. Also note the presence of Chief Superintendent Ruaraidh Nicolson. This is the guy who, following the arrest in Glasgow earlier this year of the Stockholm suicide bomber's accomplice, was so 'culturally aware' that he said the following:

The most important thing here is the community reassurance, and getting information out to our communities, that this is not focused on any one community. This is an individual. Terrorism is a criminal act and that is how we will be dealing with this.

and implicitly threatened to arrest anyone who implied that terrorism might have a disproportionate link to any particular 'community':

We are working together with our community advisers, our community leaders to make sure that Scotland is a safe place.

If there any repercussions, if there are any raised tensions, if there’s any focus on one community we will be taking a robust stance on that.

Didn't Take Long Did It?

Newly appointed MSP Humza Yousaf has already started to agitate on behalf of Muslim interests and against the interests of the Scottish people, and he seems to have roped the rest of the SNP hierarchy into his plans.

Airport Open Day for Minorities

Notice it says minorities when it's really specifically about Muslims.

Ethnic minority representatives will be invited to a security open day at Glasgow Airport to try to allay fears they are being singled out for questioning by security staff.

Glasgow MSP Humza Yousaf has been in discussions with airport authorities following claims that some ethnic minorities would rather travel to Manchester or London rather than face "awkward questions" at Glasgow.

Mr Yousaf said: "During the election campaign, a number of folk raised it with me. People have been stopped four or five times and asked really awkward questions like: How many times a day do you pray?; What mosque do you go to?; or Does your wife wear a headscarf?."

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 empowers police officers to stop and question travellers at UK ports and airports without needing reasonable suspicion that the person is engaged in terrorism.

A BAA Glasgow spokesman said: "Schedule 7 checks are a police matter so we cannot comment specifically. However, we have good relations with ethnic minority groups who we meet with on a regular basis, and we will help facilitate an open day to explain the procedures involved in the security screening process."

Mr Yousaf welcomed the airport's approach. He said: "There was a report in The Guardian (newspaper) that said that people from ethnic minorities are 42 times more likely to be stopped under Schedule 7 in UK airports.

"From speaking to people, the situation seems to be a lot worse in Glasgow than anywhere else, to the point where some people are travelling to Manchester or London to take a flight instead.

"I spoke to one individual who has lived here for 35 years and is well integrated in the community, who has been stopped several times and now takes the train to Manchester whenever he wants to fly."

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill will be attending the meeting alongside Tayside Police's Assistant Chief Constable Colin McCashey, Scotland`s head of counter-terrorism.

He said: "There are some questions that need to be legitimately asked. Equally, there are manners and ways in which it can be done."

Source: The Herald

Of course the security staff who, before, were simply being appropriately thorough, will now be intimidated and will go softly-softly on the Muslims, increasing the risk to anyone flying in and out of Scotland.