British woman held after being seen reading book about Syria on plane | Hacker News Reader

British woman held after being seen reading book about Syria on plane

theguardian.com

57 pointsazuajef78 comments

> However, like all airlines, our crew are trained to report any concerns they may have as a precaution

And their superiors are trained to call the police in any case, just as a precaution. And the police are trained to jail anyone who is reported, just a as precaution. The only one who can stop this slippery slope is the person in charge with fighting terrorism, but he is too busy to intervene. /s

This kind of freedom - to read Syria related books in a plane - has long died. We're just now aware of it. Maybe 20 years ago it was OK, but now we got other priorities.

From the article

"Police officers questioned Shaheen for 15 minutes under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, under which the police can detain individuals without grounds for suspicion of involvement in criminal activities, including terrorism."

So...someone over reacted/misunderstood, the police had a chat, and she went home. Detained is not arrested, it's not on record it just means you aren't allowed to walk off (IANAL but that's how I understand it).

Someone in the cabin crew was a bit dumb, but it was over within half an hour of it hitting an actual authority figure.

Not a pleasant experience, but the only people at fault here are cabin creq

We are now in a place where you are racist if you report something and you are wrong, and you are an idiot if you don't report something and something bad happens. Most people would rather be labeled an idiot, and we have yet another terror attack in Europe.

We are now in a place where you are a racist if you report something stupid based on someone's race and are wrong.

Are you trying to make the case that reporting a Muslim for reading a book is somehow not racist?

It's safe to assume there were other muslims reading books on a plane going to Turkey, and they didn't get reported.

This woman wasn't reported "for reading a book," but because of what book she was reading. So it was not racist, though her appearance was definitely part of the decision making process.

Fine, for reading this book. How does that make it any less stupid or racist?

>It's safe to assume there were other muslims reading books on a plane going to Turkey, and they didn't get reported.

If any of these books were about Syrian culture, you would have a point. But the issue is whether or not it's reasonable to suspect, detain and interrogate someone for reading a book about Syrian culture, regardless of their appearance.

> though her appearance was definitely part of the decision making process.

I think a more obviously European-looking person reading the same book on the same plane would not have seemed suspicious, and would never have been detained. Her appearance even being part of the decision making process is what makes it racist. That such an absurd thing was taken seriously makes it racist.

There is a lot of context not in the article. A white European man with a long beard and clean shaven lip reading the book might have seemed suspicious. Since what authorities are looking for is people going to fight for teh Islamic State, then how Islamic you looks is a valid factor in determining suspicion - that isn't racist.

"looking Islamic" while minding your own business isn't suspicious behavior.

> ...is the person in charge with fighting terrorism, but he is too busy to intervene

Yes, too busy ramping up the pointless security theatre and getting the Met to make media photo sessions with their SWAT team.

Meanwhile all the Special Branch who used to have bases at ports and airports have been reassigned to cities as part of austerity savings.

I am rather depressed by the willingness of the Brit public to accept all of it.

We solved the Irish problems by talking to the parties involved after 100 years of armed checkpoints and suspicion had failed. I guess we learned nothing.

I disagree that we no longer have this freedom. The fact that it results in outraged articles in the mainstream media shows that the freedom still exists. When incidents like this stop being reported on, then we'll have lost it.

Similar incident - a man doing math: https://stactivist.com/2016/05/12/equations-on-an-airplane/

by that logic - algebra is a word from arabic, al jabr, if you follow it to its ultimate conclusion of somebody with a racist myopic worldview, arabic = desert and camels and guys with swords = terrorism = ISIS

Keep going... Lock up everyone who uses those radical Arabic numerals then?

Also chemistry/alchemy comes (sortof) from the Arabic "al-kīmiyā" - or further back, from the Egyptian name for Egypt.

So any chemist reading books on "Free Radicals" should be questioned immediately!

let's ban elephants while we're at it, since elephant is derived from the arabic "al feel". Also Giraffes, arabic "zarafa"

I thought the recent Onion article "Encouraging New Study Indicates Majority Of U.S. Students Can Now Recognize Math" was satire... but perhaps sadly it isn't as far-fetched as it seems.

http://www.theonion.com/article/encouraging-new-study-indica...

This reminds me a lot of the people questioned after the Boston bombing for "suspicious" Google searches. [0]

One person was questioned after searching for pressure cooker bombs at work, and the other was questioned because she was searching for pressure cookers, and her partner was searching for backpacks.

[0]: http://nypost.com/2013/08/02/li-man-questioned-for-computer-...

whatever you do, don't search for 55 gallon steel drums, the recipe for ANFO, and ryder rental trucks

When you get amateurs to do your security, you get amateur security.

Sadly, if I were a Muslim (or just brown) I would be afraid to write code on my laptop while flying. I can hear it now...

"He's trying to hack the plane!"

This brings a lot of light when once I started programming in the plane and a guy suddenly started to ask me many questions about my job, nationality, etc.

I wonder, if she had a different name and appearance, if she wouldn't have been suspected.

I guess she'll be switching to ebooks now...

As a practical consideration, one might be able to wrap a cover around a book. If one is peering over your shoulder, an ebook might be advised with a privacy screen.

Until the airline crew conclude that hiding the title of the book one is reading is equally suspicious. After all, innocent people have nothing to hide, right?

Use a cover depicting flowers or palm trees, nobody will suspect anything--or as the poster suggested via YouTube video, a cover with the title "Ass Eating Made Simple" /s

But yes, I could see that too...

I think we should all wrap our airline reading material in fake covers showing the title of this book.

Something like this below?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyVVbhvStk

Oh yes!

Now I really want to buy a copy of Hiding Your Erection From God.

And women should cover themselves to prevent men from succumbing to temptation...

Positive side of this story is that the community we are living in is actually not with their heads in the sand and report people that look suspicious to them.

Maybe in Turkey they will detain a turkish woman, coming from a honeymoon in UK, for reading an article about Fethullah Gülen. That's actually not funny anymore.

> on her return from her honeymoon in Turkey

Many people left UK to join ISIS or to be kidnapped... Syria is a warzone, and if you are travelling in/from that direction it will raise a questions.

> Police officers questioned Shaheen for 15 minutes

This article is a joke.

Could you clarify the point you're trying to make. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or voting for Trump.

Poe's Law in effect.

She was traveling Turkey > UK, that is usual path someone from Syria would take. That on its own is enough to raise questions. For some examples read related content under article.

She was 'held' (original title was 'detained') for 15 minutes. That is not even rounding error at UK international airports.

And half of the article is an ad for the book.

Your quote says it was the opposite flight when she was detained.

> that is usual path someone from Syria would take. That on its own is enough to raise questions.

What nonsense. If dodgy individuals constantly feature on this route why does the flight even exist then? Just for "safe" non-brown non-black people?

>She was 'held' (original title was 'detained') for 15 minutes.

"Police officers questioned Shaheen for 15 minutes under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, "

Yeah, Under the terrorism act... For reading a book about art.

No she was questioned for being reported as suspicious by a flight attendant.

Given it was only for 15 minutes I imagine pretty quickly it became "oh, it's a book about art, bloody flight attendants are idiots. Ok, well we need to check your bag for any other books, sorry about this". Except more formal than that as they have a nice sheet full of questions they have to ask for this sort of thing (source, I had a knife in my bag at Gatwick once and went through something I imagine was quite similar - except much more my fault obviously).

If the trigger to being labeled as 'suspicious' is you carrying a weapon on a plane, then people are less likely to find it unreasonable. If the trigger is the simple act of reading a book, then, no it is not reasonable and should never be. At the _very_ least the airline should issue a full apology and reconsider their shoddy pseudo-security training.

Sure, a knife is very similar to a book about art. Entirely reasonable to be treated in the same way

I wasn't particularly clear - I intended to say that is why I have some knowledge of what it is like to be interviewed by the police at a British airport. In my case I was dumb, in this case the flight attendant was dumb. In both cases we were on our way within 15 minutes (and with me a stern warning to not do that again).

So you cannot travel from Turkey to UK without raising terrorism concerns? I am not sure we live in the same reality anymore.

The problem is not how long she was held, but the reasons for her being held which just sound an misinformed racism.

No, but how about this: if travel between Syria and the UK you may raise terrorism concerns. So if you are travelling from (or to) Turkey, while carrying things may indicate you had been in (or going to) Syria, then why not ask?

Because that's just daft. The vast majority of stuff I read is about places/things that I want to learn more about.

Or, let me put another angle on it... If I wanted to sneak into a country from another country I shouldn't be sneaking in from. How would I go about not advertising that fact?

The assumption that reading a book about Syria means you want to bomb London is so ludicrous I can't believe it's even up for debate.

The people trying to get to Syria to join ISIS aren't spymasters, they are often kids, often mentally unstable, often uneducated. So yes, they might sit on a plane reading a guide to bomb making or how about the hottest resorts Aleppo.

> The assumption that reading a book about Syria means you want to bomb London is so ludicrous I can't believe it's even up for debate.

Of course, that's why no one made that claim. That kind of strawman argument isn't helpful if you want to actually discuss this.

The New York Times had a great article on ISIS yesterday. There is a pathway terrorists are taking from Europe, through Turkey, to Syria, for training, and then back through Turkey, to their home country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/world/middleeast/isis-germ...

> Of course, that's why no one made that claim.

But the problem is, someone working for Thompson did make that assumption/claim.

No one is questioning that mentally unstable / impressionable people are being radicalised in the UK, sent via Turkey for training, and back again to blow themselves up.

The issue, as I see it, is that it behoves both the terrorists and our various security apperatus to propagate the constant state of fear. It's no small irony that the end result is mutually beneficial.

Oppression/Terrorism is a reactionary cycle that is very hard to break out of. I fear we may never given the last few years. Those who seek security at the cost of liberty deserve and endure neither.

> But the problem is, someone working for Thompson did make that assumption/claim.

All you know is what was in the article, "a cabin-crew member reported her for “suspicious behaviour” while reading a book about Syrian culture on a flight to Turkey." That's far from, "everyone reading a book is going to bomb London". The crew member didn't call police to have her arrested, they just saw something, or things, including a book, that they noted as suspicious. Not only is the story overblown, it deters people from actually reporting more suspicious and dangerous behavior.

I'll reply here because we've reached the thread limit below. I'm not taking issue with this example alone, it's the latest and a list of crazy interactions, some listed elsewhere at the root. The one that stands out in my mind was the guy reported/detained for doing some math on a piece of paper.

That might have been on US soil.

Look it. I grew up in the troubles, I was shot at, I was constantly searched on the way to school, constantly suspected always in fear. I saw all sides of a messy stupid war. You know what worked in the end... peace and dialog, it took men like John Hume to rise above it all and just be reasonable, to sit down and talk.

My fear, no.. my firm belief is that this McCarthyism-like nonsense solves nothing, has constantly proven itself to solve nothing throughout history and actually perpetuates the issue.

I think we live in different realities. Did you ever traveled through UK? In there you can raise terrorism concern by sneezing or by heaving some tea in your bag.

> In there you can raise terrorism concern by sneezing

What?

I'm more concerned about people with your world view and the effect you can have on my freedoms than any perceived threat you picked up watching Fox/Sky News.

Maybe you should put all persons with wrong world view into some sort of camp, so they would not threaten your freedoms.

I was just worried about people demonstrating a degree of xenophobia and how that's only going to compound the various challenges we face today.

However, now I'm actually concerned about you. What are you doing on HN? Your counterpoint follows no logic I can ascertain.

Who is talking about xenophobia? She basically hijacked legitimate issue (people held for several hours at airport) to propagate a book and herself. And when I present valid arguments, you just start personal attack.

No I do not watch Fox/Sky, it does not even broadcast in here. And maybe I should give you ring next time I travel to US, because I think your immigration service is profiling non-americans for extra questioning.

Every time a British citizen shows up in Syria fighting for ISIS, the government is criticized heavily for letting someone slip through. It makes the whole country look bad and the people demand that something be done about it. Any protocol which effectively stops people from joining ISIS will have some false positives, and if the consequence of being a false positive is a fifteen-minute interview, then I'm not sure I can find it in myself to be outraged.

If that's an extreme conservative view then stick a toupee on me and call me Trump, I guess. :P

> It makes the whole country look bad

I think you're missing the underlying goal of terrorism.

This makes the country look bad.

Keep Calm, Carry On when bombs are falling makes the country look strong.

There are far more effective methods to stop extremists. This is just looks stupid.

You have no idea how many people are traveling from Europe to the general direction of Syria or back. A vanishingly small percentage of these people pose a security threat. Harassing people who read books about Syria is not going to make anyone safer.

Harassing people getting their Nth drink at a bar about who is driving them home would though. Too bad that doesn't grip political support like buzzwords and slogans about the threat of terrorism.

> Harassing

Honest question: how is stopping someone for 15 minute of polite questioning is "harassing"?

It doesn't matter for how long you are being stopped. Being suspected to be a terrorist just because you look vaguely Muslim (that was probably the other factor apart from the book) can be a shocking and live-changing experience. It tells you that you are not seen as a part of mainstream society in your home country (the woman is British). Given the HN demographics you are probably a white American male, so you probably never got into this situation and never will.

I am from Prague, worked in Ireland for many years. I was detained on UK airports for about 20 hours in total.

Just because you've decided to accept your treatment, doesn't make it right.

Let's say the police made a point of stopping all HN commenters whose usernames end in "a" for a polite 15-minute chat. Would you find this to be acceptable?

So, you call it "harassment" not because of nature of the action, but because of the reason behind the action?

Of course. If the police stop and question you because they think you just killed a guy, that's completely reasonable. If they stop and question you because they don't like your hair, that's harassment.

Thanks for your reply.

So, if you're being questioned but don't know why, it means that you don't know if you're being harassed or not?

And if you don't find out the reaso later (as it usually happens with security checks), this episode goes down as Shroedinger cat of harrasments in your life story?

Yes. Sort of like if you keep bumping into the same guy at the grocery store, you don't know if you're being stalked or if it's just a wacky coincidence.

For a more prominent example, every time a black American gets stopped for some minor traffic violation, he has to wonder if it's a legitimate stop, or if the officer actually pulled him over for Driving While Black, and whatever offense he came up with is just an excuse.

Polite questioning? You were there? Can you provide more details, please?

Unwanted attention from someone who won't take "leave me alone" for an answer normally counts, even in a situation where the target is allowed to walk out and knows that nobody involved in the unwanted attention is armed, even if the target knew for a fact in advance that the attention would end in 10 minutes.

And you don't think that police officers should be an exception to that definition?

If they have reasonable suspicion that a crime happened or is about to, sure. However, reading a book other than, say, _How to hijack an airplane_ isn't that.

It is not just about terrorism. It is a normal procedure to question people who travel from that region.

Most people traveling from Syria ask for asylum or have no valid travel documents, do not speak English and need some form of help. She could be someone who escaped ISIS and needed help.

Some other example: 20 years ago UK border force would question everyone who was traveling from Czechia. Because 0.1% of travelers from there would ask for asylum.

It is? It looks like there are maybe two dozen direct flights per day between London and Istanbul, not even looking at other UK or Turkish cities. That's probably thousands of passengers per day. Do they all get questioned when they enter the UK?

> Most people traveling from Syria ask for asylum

The woman in question is a Biritsh citizen (see title) who most likely speaks perfect English. Also she was travelling from Turkey not Syria.

> It is not just about terrorism. It is a normal procedure to question people who travel from that region.

No, it isn't, you're off base on this. Turkey is one of most popular tourist destinations for the UK, a vanishingly small percentage of people who travel from Turkey are interviewed.

I know what I'm taking as reading material on my next flight...

Big f*n deal.

> I do question if … it would be different if it was someone who wasn’t Muslim.

Doubtful. How would they know you're Muslim until after they questioned you?

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