Muslim YouTube star kicked off Delta flight for speaking Arabic

December 22, 2016

New Delhi, Dec 22: A YouTube star known for filming elaborate hoaxes was escorted off a Delta flight on Wednesday morning after he claimed that other passengers complained when they heard him speaking in Arabic.

salehAdam Saleh, a 23-year-old YouTube star from New York, posted multiple videos to Twitter and Periscope on Tuesday, showing himself being escorted from a plane by Delta flight attendants.

Saleh said in the videos that after passengers heard him speaking Arabic, they “felt uncomfortable” and called flight attendants. However, while it is clear that he was removed from the flight at London's Heathrow airport, the circumstances leading up to the video – retweeted more than 644,000 times – are not known and cannot be verified.

Saleh has created videos in the past that involved staged scenes on airplanes and with actors playing authority figures.

Saleh was on a flight from London to New York with his friend Slim Albaher, another YouTube personality, who was also escorted off the plane.

“They kicked us off the plane because a lady, because a lot of people felt uncomfortable,” Saleh said. “Delta Air Lines just kicked us out for speaking Arabic.”

Saleh told the Guardian that he was calling his mother before his flight from Heathrow on Wednesday morning.

“Usually before I take off I speak to my mom,” he said. “My mom is 66 years old and she only speaks Arabic, so I was speaking to her in Arabic – it was a 30-second phone call.”

After the phone call, he said, he was speaking with Albaher in Arabic and in English when “this lady that was sitting maybe four seats ahead of us turns around and says:Oh my, you need to speak English, I'm feeling very uncomfortable.'” Saleh said after another passenger defended the two, an older man the woman was travelling with also got involved.

According to Saleh, he said: “Chuck them off the f-ing plane!” before other men stood up and called for the captain.

The woman who originally complained told the captain: “We feel uncomfortable – something happened in Germany. If they don't leave, I leave,” according to Saleh.

Saleh said the captain then asked to speak to them outside, which is when he started filming.

Saleh, who has millions of followers subscribed to his YouTube channels, posted numerous times from an airport in London where he said Delta had asked them to wait. His latest tweet said they had been rebooked on another flight to New York with a different airline after going through the security check a second time.

Saleh is known for orchestrating pranks in his YouTube videos. He recently created a video that appeared to show himself traveling from Melbourne to Sydney inside a suitcase in the plane's baggage hold. The airline later said that Saleh had sat in a regular seat on the flight and that travelling via the baggage section would have been impossible.

Saleh and a colleague admitted that another video was exaggerated after it went viral and its authenticity was questioned. The 2014 video appeared to show a New York police officer intervening in an argument when the Muslim men wore “cultural clothing” but ignoring the same men when they were dressed in T-shirts and jeans. Saleh later said the video was a “dramatization of previous events that occurred with us in our traditional clothing while filming in NYC”.

When asked about his previous hoaxes, Saleh defended the authenticity of Wednesday's videos.

“You can exactly see in the video a person sticking a middle finger up at the back, you see a guy defending us. The captain was quiet when I said what had happened,” he told the Guardian. “We wouldn't be here joking around.”

One passenger, who spoke to BuzzFeed News, said he had talked to five passengers who witnessed Saleh's behavior. They questioned whether he had really made a telephone call. Passenger Marvin Avilez also said that witnesses described Saleh's friend prompting him to say Arabic words and to pump his fists in the air, which apparently led to an argument with a female passenger.

In the video, several passengers jeered at him as he recorded the incident. Saleh said a few passengers came to his defense. One man can be heard criticizing the flight attendants.

“I spoke to my mom, I told her I'm going to see you in six to seven hours,” he said. “Now everything is literally upside down.”

In later videos, Saleh said that the flight attendants told him and Albaher they were “too loud” and that they asked to speak to them outside the plane.

“All the racist people in there, they were like:We feel uncomfortable,' but because there were like 20 of those racist people, the captain came and he kicked us out,” he said. “I'm not letting this slide … They were screaming at us like we were terrorists.”

Delta released a statement saying “two customers” had been removed from a flight and later rebooked after “a disturbance in the cabin resulted in more than 20 customers expressing their discomfort”.

The airline later said, after collecting statements from passengers, that the pair “sought to disrupt the cabin with provocative behavior, including shouting”.

“This type of conduct is not welcome on any Delta flight. While one, according to media reports, is a known prankster who was video recorded and encouraged by his traveling companion, what is paramount to Delta is the safety and comfort of our passengers and employees. It is clear these individuals sought to violate that priority.”

In a statement, London's Metropolitan police said they were called to Heathrow around 11am, “after two passengers were removed from a plane by crew at Heathrow Airport.

“Officers attended and the passengers were escorted to the terminal where they were assisted with making alternative travel arrangements.

“They were not arrested and no offences were disclosed.”

Saleh later tweeted: “Yes, we're pranksters and it sounds like the boy who cried wolf but today you can clearly see it's as real as it gets.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said that in the last year it had received nearly a dozen reports of Muslim travelers, or travelers who were perceived to be Muslim, being questioned or removed from flights after complaints.

Italian economist Guido Menzio was questioned during a domestic flight when a passenger complained that a differential equation he was working on made her suspicious. Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a student, was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight and questioned by the FBI in April after a passenger heard him speaking in Arabic to his uncle, he said.

Comments

DOOR WAY TO HE…
 - 
Thursday, 22 Dec 2016

GOOD JOB,,,,,THIS WILL HAPPEN EVERYWHERE IN WORLD,,,THANXS TO RUSSIA CHINA USA INDIA,,,,,,,THIS WILL START EVERYWHERE NO ONE CAN STOP THIS,,,,,SHUD NOT LET HIM FLY AGAIN....HIS BL;OGS ARE THIRD CLASS,,,,ADAM SALEH LOOOOSER,,,,,SHUD HAVE BEEN TROWN OUT OF THE PLANE...

Naren kotian
 - 
Thursday, 22 Dec 2016

Arabic used by 99% global terrorists who are basically blood thirsty. . so they did the right thing ....see how he is approaching chummah gang ....haha

shaji
 - 
Thursday, 22 Dec 2016

This is ridiculous and unacceptable. This is really a intolerance. This will give rise to more radical. Flight attendants should not attend to such hate mongers and instead kick them out of plane and should be penalized for hurting co-passenger's feeling.

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News Network
June 10,2020

Bengaluru, Jun 10: Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) supremo and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda said on Tuesday that he filed his nomination for the June 19 Rajya Sabha elections from Karnataka in response to a collective call from national leaders to be back in the Parliament.

"Though I was not personally interested to contest, national leaders from Congress President Sonia Gandhi, National Conference President Farooq Abdullah, TMC and Left parties want me back in Parliament," he told reporters here.

Gowda, 87, filed his nomination in the Vidhana Soudha, submitting the papers to Assembly Secretary and Returning Officer M.K. Vishalakshi, a party official told IANS.

Gowda''s second son and former minister H.D. Revanna and third son and former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy were present on the occasion.

"Our party''s all 34 legislators also urged me to contest as my presence is necessary in Parliament at a time when the country was grappling with multiple crises in the aftermath of coronavirus," said Gowda.

Claiming that there was no pressure from his two sons as they are more concerned with his health, Gowda said he was touched by the requests of the national leaders, especially Gandhi who personally called him and asked him to contest as the country needed his presence in Parliament.

Gowda agreed to contest in the bypoll as his party''s candidate after the Congress state unit assured him of its support with its surplus votes, as the JD-S with 34 legislators is short of 10 votes of the required 44 votes.

It will be second time Gowda will enter the Rajya Sabha, 24 years after he was its member as the Prime Minster from June 1996 to April 1997 of the United Front government.

"Congress General Secretary K.C. Venugopal informed Kumaraswamy on June 6 that the party was fielding only its senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge from Karnataka and had surplus votes to ensure my victory as our party is 10 votes short of the required 44 votes to win," Gowda said.

Kharge filed his nomination on Monday.

Party''s outgoing member Kupendra Reddy, whose 6-year term ends on June 25, told Gowda that he was not interested for a second term as he did not get enough time in the upper house to raise issues.

"As our party does not have numbers in Parliament to get more time allotted to raise issues and participate in debates, Reddy wanted me to be in the Rajya Sabha in his place so that I could serve the nation better," Gowda said.

Gowda lost in the May 2019 general elections from Tumkur to G.S. Basvaraj of the BJP.

With the term of the four members -- Congress'' B.K. Hariprasad and Rajeev Gowda, BJP''s Prabhakar Kore and JD-S''s Reddy ending on June 25, the Election Commission notified the poll on June 1.

According to the poll panel, the nominations will be scrutinised on Wednesday and last date for withdrawal by candidates is June 12. Polling and vote count is on June 19.

From the ruling BJP, its grassroot cadres Eranna Kadadi and Ashok Gasti filed their nominations after Gowda.

By fielding Gowda for the fourth seat, the Congress and JD-S, who had post-poll and pre-poll alliances for the Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections in May 2019 and May 2018, queered the pitch for the BJP, denying it the chance to win a third seat.

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News Network
March 2,2020

Bengaluru, Mar 2: Karnataka Minister BC Patil on Monday repeated his earlier statements that he will approach the Centre to bring a law to "shoot at sight" anyone who raises anti-India slogans.

"I am not going back on my statement as I have not said anything wrong. I had said that I will ask the central government to bring a law to shoot at sight those who shout slogans against India. Nowadays it has become a fashion for some youths to get popularity this way which spoils the country and patriotism," Patil told reporters here.

"There is nothing wrong in asking for a law. I have not said that I will myself shoot someone who shouts slogans against India. If the same thing happens in Pakistan, they will be beheaded. But we are not so brutal, we book a case and send them to judicial custody," he added.

Patil also said that there was no need for holding discussions over the amended Citizenship Act, but added that the ruling BJP will defend it if the opposition raises a stir in the state Assembly.

The budget session of the Karnataka Assembly began on Monday.

Comments

Fairman
 - 
Monday, 2 Mar 2020

He deserves his own recommendation.

Because his statement anti Indians.

 

God bless them wisdom these loose chaddies

Abdul Gaffar Bolar
 - 
Monday, 2 Mar 2020

What if BC patil raises anti-india slogan

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News Network
January 18,2020

Bengaluru, Jan 18: The searches by income-tax officials at the residence of south Indian actress Rashmika Mandanna at Virajpet in Kodagu district were concluded on Friday.

The searches, conducted since Thursday by sleuths from Bengaluru, were concluded on Friday morning, the family said.

Speaking to reporters outside the house, the actress's mother Suman said: "We all cooperated with the officials since Thursday. The officials asked some questions which we answered properly."

Rashmika, who was not at the residence when the I-T officials arrived, joined them on Thursday night, she added.

According to sources, IT officials from Bengaluru who arrived in three cars on Thursday verified documents pertaining to properties, bank accounts and investments.

Rashmika has acted in several Kannada and Telugu movies. Her recent film 'Sarileru Neekevvaru' opposite popular Telugu actor Mahesh Babu is in the theatres now.

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