I picked this up from Reuters:

Muslim leaders expressed outrage on Tuesday after six imams were removed from a commercial airline flight in Minnesota for what they said was nothing more than trying to say evening prayers.

“They were treated like terrorists … humiliated,” said Abu Hannoud, civil rights director for the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who said the men were taken off the US Airways flight in handcuffs.

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He said the men were still trying to find a flight back to Phoenix where most are affiliated with a major mosque after the carrier refused them passage following the incident on Monday evening.

“We are concerned that crew members, passengers and security personnel may have succumbed to fear and prejudice based on stereotyping of Muslims and Islam,” added Nihad Awad, executive director of the council, in a statement from the group’s Washington headquarters.

CAIR and the US Muslim population should be outraged. They should take immediate action to put an end to such behavior.

But of course it is not the passengers, the crew, nor the airline which should be the just target of their rage. The fact remains that Islam is the focal point for most of the world terrorist activities, and a high percentage of terrorist activities against American targets are perpetrated by Muslim men. CAIR, these Imams, and the Muslim population need to lash out at those they claim have hijacked their religion. You cannot fault the passengers and crew in this case as they are only responding to the image of Islamic terrorism which comes at them time and time again.

“They were rewarded by being treated like terrorists,” he said. “Their humiliation is really a humiliation for the entire Muslim community,” he added, and further proof that Islam phobia is a growing problem in the United States.

Why where they treated like terrorists? Was it because they belonged to a religion which condones these activities? Could it be because they are a part of a population which is known for extremism? Or it could be something they specifically did or said?

Patrick Hogan, spokesman for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission, said the airline asked airport police to remove the six men from the Minneapolis to Phoenix flight because their actions were “arousing some concerns” among both passengers and crew.

He said the men had been praying at the gate area but he did not know if they tried to pray once at their seats inside the plane.

He also said some witnesses reported the men were making anti-American statements involving the Iraq war, asked to change seats once inside the cabin, that one requested an extender to make his seat belt larger even though he did not appear to need it and that in general “there was some peculiar behavior.”

That would be enough to raise my eyebrow, and I am not as sensitive as most. Only and organization, such as CAIR, with an extreme case of tunnel vision cannot see the true reason why the world is concerned about Islam and its practitioners. I applaud US Air for taking a stance that was bound to be unpopular for the sake of the security of its passengers.