Student kicked off flight for 'potentially threatening comments' was just speaking Arabic

Khairuldeen Makhzoomi was waiting for takeoff on a flight from Los Angeles to Oakland, California, when he decided to give his uncle in Baghdad, Iraq, a quick call. 

The 26-year-old University of California, Berkeley student told his uncle he'd just attended a dinner with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. His uncle asked Makhzoomi to call him again when he got to Oakland, and Makhzoomi said "insha'Allah" — "God willing," in Arabic — he would.

A woman, who had been staring at Makhzoomi as he talked, suddenly stood and walked off the plane. 

Minutes later, police boarded and escorted him off the flight.

Makhzoomi was questioned. Officials asked why he was speaking in Arabic and why he was having a "serious conversation." They asked him what he knew about "martyrs." Then, as dogs stood nearby, Makhzoomi said an official searched around his genitals.

"The way they searched me and the dogs, the officers, people were watching me and the humiliation made me so afraid."

"That is when I couldn’t handle it and my eyes began to water," Makhzoomi told The Daily Californian. "The way they searched me and the dogs, the officers, people were watching me and the humiliation made me so afraid because it brought all of these memories back to me."

Makhzoomi, who escaped Iraq in 2002 after his father was killed, was finally told he could go. Officials informed him that Southwest would provide a refund, but wouldn't fly him to Oakland, so he booked a flight on Delta. 

The student says he just wants an apology, but Southwest has yet to offer one, something a few people have taken notice of on Twitter. 

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In a statement, a Southwest spokesperson said the airline "neither condones nor tolerates discrimination," but that, in this case, the flight crew "made the decision to investigate a report of potentially threatening comments."

Makhzoomi said he spoke with a Southwest representative and said he simply wanted a public apology, though the Associated Press reports that it has been unable to confirm whether or not the airline thinks that will happen. 

"I hope I can get that apology because we need to solve this problem," Makhzoomi said, according to the AP. "But we cannot solve any problem without mentioning what is the problem, and that is that Islamophobia is real and it's been used by many people and it's time to say enough is enough."

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