The United Arab Emirates urged citizens to avoid wearing traditional clothes when traveling overseas after a businessman visiting the USA was handcuffed at gunpoint because a hotel clerk spread false reports that he was an Islamic State suspect.
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While al-Menhali was in the lobby calling Booking.com and searching for other options, relatives of a hotel worker dialed 911 and reported him as a possible terrorist, claiming that he was “using multiple disposable phones pledging his allegiance to ISIS”.
Police descended on the hotel with rifles, and as Al Menhali exited the hotel talking on his phone, they screamed at him to get on the ground, sat on him with knees in his back, threw his phones, handcuffed him, reached under his garments, took his shoes off and dumped out his wallet.
“She went off and texted her sister and said I pledged my allegiance to ISIS”, Mr Menhali told Al-Jazeera, speaking through a friend due to his inability to speak properly following a previous stroke.
Police apologized to Al Menhali after the incident.
Criminal charges could be brought against an OH woman over a false accusation that a United Arab Emirates (UAE) tourist vowed allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group, the mayor of the city in which the incident unfolded said.
But while Menhali was reportedly grateful for the public apology-“Ahmed greatly appreciates the overture by coming to meet him on a holiday weekend”, a translator said on Menhali’s behalf-the incident has taken on global dimensions, as Muslims overseas are increasingly afraid of growing Islamophobia.
Menhali was in OH for treatment after having a stroke.
Rawda Al Otaiba, Director of the American Affairs at the MoFAIC, expressed “discontent over the abusive treatment by the OH police of a UAE citizen” as well as the posting of a video showing his arrest, which contained “defamation of the UAE national”.
WEWS via AP In this July 2, 2016, frame from video, Avon Police Chief Richard Bosley, right, and Mayor Bryan Jensen apologize to Ahmed al-Menhali, after he collapsed following an encounter with police in Avon, Ohio.
Local newspapers said Avon police released the man after they realised their mistake, but he fainted and needed hospital treatment.
‘That was not the intent of any of our officers.
Police and town officials later apologised for the incident, calling it “very regrettable”. “You should not have been put in that situation”.
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“I believe the clerk had little cultural training to where she called her family to make it something outrageous”, Shearson told CNN.
