Ms Dharas said she and her brother Ali, 21, and sister…
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An Easyjet spokesman said today: “EasyJet can confirm that, following concerns raised by a passenger during the boarding of flight EZY3249 from London Stansted to Naples on August 17, 2016, a member of ground staff requested the assistance of the police who took the decision to talk to three passengers at the bottom of the aircraft steps, before departure”.
“Officers at the airport spoke to them and examined their phones with their consent”, police said in a statement.
easyJet has apologised to the siblings for the inconvenience.
Maryam also told MEE that an EasyJet official told the siblings upon their return to the United Kingdom that the airline will not be making an official apology as the incident was “not the airline’s fault”. ‘What the hell is going on?’ We begin to descend the steps, and as we do, are met with the first question, initiating this freakish and incredulous episode. When she asked him why he then needed details from her, Dharas said that the agent told her, “Oh be sure that I’ll be doing more research on you, and if anything comes back, I’ll be here waiting on your return'”.
Officers scrutinised the trio’s phones and passports before allowing the family back onto the flight, which had been delayed by an hour.
“I showed the WhatsApp conversations I was having with my family and the timestamps of when the conversations took place”, Maryam told MEE, while stressing that the texts had nothing to do with Islam. I’m sick and exhausted of this shit happening.
“The experience was just a shock and also concerning because since when was saying God is great tantamount to terrorism”, she wrote.
After explaining to the agent that the Arabic phrase was part of the Qur’an and did not signify allegiance to the terrorist organization, Dharas said “we’ve had nothing on our phone remotely Arabic related this morning”.
“Maybe I don’t fit the sort of profile they were looking for because I don’t look typically Muslim”, he said.
‘Right, we have to speak with you.
During the interrogation, Maryam’s elder sister, Sakina, was taken aside and asked about her travel history, especially her visa stamps from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, which Maryam claims she got while volunteering with orphaned Iraqi children who had lost their parents after the IS group swept through swathes of Iraq and Syria. “We are satisfied the call was of good intent”, it said.
“The police then confirmed to the captain that the passengers were cleared to complete their journey and they reboarded the aircraft and the flight departed to Naples”.
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“The safety and security of. passengers and crew is our highest priority which means that if a security concern is raised we will always investigate it as a precautionary measure…. Why weren’t those passengers who made the false claim about us removed from the plane for wasting valuable police time?”
