OldCujo wrote:
Transport for London said it had apologised to all the passengers for the delay to their journey and said all Muslim drivers are being reminded that they should pray during statutory rest periods rather than hold up services.
Reminded? Should? Way too polite! How informing the raghead piece of shit there will be five knuckle-dragging guys that will shove pork sandwiches up all his body orifices if he ever does this again. You guys in the UK need a group like Anti-CAIR to deal with these fucking animals.
If you drink, some cabbies won't drive
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- It's always interesting to me, that in my own country, I often get assignments where I walk into a room, and everyone looks and sounds different from me. Different language. Different culture. And sometimes, different beliefs.
On this story, I crossed such a threshold.
I stepped into the taxi depot that serves the Minneapolis - St. Paul International Airport, where drivers sit and wait for their next fare. In this crowded, noisy room, most of the cabbies are Muslims originally from Somalia.
"We're doing a story about the conflict between the cabbies and the airport. The Muslim drivers have been refusing to take passengers carrying alcohol, such as wine or liquor purchased at a duty free shop," I explained.
A group of men gathered around us.
"This is America, we have freedom of religion," says one cabbie. We could see their feelings are intense -- that the issue seems to cut to the core of their identity.
"The Metropolitan Airport Commission is discriminating against us Muslim drivers," says Abdulkaddir Adan, a Somalian-American who's been driving a cab in the Twin Cities for two years.
We asked Adan if he'd give us a ride, and let us interview him while he was driving. He agreed. CNN Photojournalist Derek Davis set up a "lipstick" cam, a small camera, positioned on the dashboard.
From the back seat, I asked why Adan would object if I were carrying alcohol.
"The one who drinks, the one who transports, and the one who makes a business of it, they have the same category," he said.
"So, by my transporting my alcohol in your cab, you are sinning?" I asked.
"Sinning to God, yes," he replied.
Adan is not alone. About three quarters of the 900 cabbies serving the airport are Muslim, and many have been regularly refusing passengers carrying beer, wine or liquor.
In the past five years, 5,400 would-be taxi passengers at the airport were refused service for this very reason, said the Metropolitan Airport Commission, or MAC. Last May, passenger Bob Dildine says he waited for 20 minutes, and five cab drivers would not give him and his daughter a ride. He was carrying wine he bought on vacation.
"They're here to provide service to people," said Dildine. "We were a lawful customer, and we were denied service. That's not our way of doing things."
MAC officials said they don't know of any airport other than the Twin Cities where this has become an issue. MAC officials explain that the area has a growing population of immigrant Somalians, many who've sought jobs as taxi drivers. Last year, MAC consulted local Muslim leaders, who issued a fatwa, or religious opinion.
"It is expressly stated," said Kahlid Elmasry of the Muslim American Society. "Transportation of alcohol for Muslims is against the Islamic faith, and therefore forbidden."
Last September, airport officials sought a compromise, and suggested that distinctive lights could be put on the roofs of cabs operated by drivers who will not transport alcohol. That way, taxi starters -- airport staff who direct people into cabs -- could send passengers with alcohol to those drivers who have no objection.
"But the feedback we got, not only locally but really from around the country and around the world, was almost entirely negative," said airport spokesman Pat Hogan. "People saw that as condoning discrimination against people who had alcohol."
Right now, MAC says any cabbie who refuses a passenger carrying alcohol must go to the back of the line. No small thing, given cabbies often have to wait at the depot up to three hours for the next fare.
But because MAC officials have received thousands of complaints, they're considering stiffer penalties: a 30-day suspension for a first refusal, a two-year suspension for a second.
"We're now at a point where the drivers may have to make a choice," said Hogan.
For Adan, the choice is clear.
"I would leave my job, instead of doing something that's not allowed in my religion," he said.
The interview with Adan took a long time. Our fare came to $150, a very good day for him. Normally, he makes about $100 a day, so it became more clear to us that refusing a fare is a big loss. But Adan said he won't accept the idea that in America a cab driver should allow something his religion forbids.
www.cnn.com . . .
Muslim taxi drivers refusing to allow the guide dogs into their cars is a recurring theme. I found this article on the web:
In July 1997, for example, a New Orleans taxi driver, Mahmoud Awad, got so incensed at his passenger, Sandi Dewdney, trying to bring a dog into the cab that he physically yanked her out of it by the arm while yelling "No dog, No dog, Get out, get out." He harmed her broken wrist. To this, CAIR replied by pointing out that "the saliva of dogs invalidates the ritual purity needed for prayer" and left it to the scholars of Islam to decide whether a guide dog should be allowed in a cab. The judge, after researching Islamic attitudes and finding no support for the driver's claims, called his behavior "a total disgrace." Awad pled guilty to battery and was sentenced to 120 days of community service at the Lighthouse for the Blind.
Then there was the more recent case in Brooksville, Florida, on Nov. 5, when a legally blind man, David Bearden, tried to enter a convenience store with his dog to buy a cold soda, but was thrown out by the clerk, Mike Hamed. As Hamed explains, he looked up from the counter "saw this big dog." Bearden picks up the tale: "As soon as we got inside the door, the clerk yelled at us to stop." Bearden says he tried three times to explain that state law not only requires access for seeing-eye dogs but treats denial of access as a criminal misdemeanor. Bearden quotes Hamed telling him nonetheless "Get that dog out of here; it's going to eat my food." Bearden says he plans to file a claim against Hamed. No word yet of CAIR defending Hamed's actions.
timfasano.typepad.com . . .
UPDATE-On an 11-0 vote Monday, Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) members voted to crack down on drivers refusing service, making Minnesota the first place in the country to decide how to treat Muslim cabbies who decline to transport alcohol- toting riders on religious grounds.
Starting May 11, any airport taxi drivers who refuse riders will face 30-day suspensions. Drivers will have their licenses revoked two years for a second offense. "We're just sending a message that if you want to drive here at this airport, you have to take all our customers," said Steve Wareham, director of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Source: StarTribune
Representatives of the Muslim cab drivers are objecting, of course, and arguing that they have a religious right to "practice" their faith even if it harms others.
UPDATE-Hassan A. Mohamud, an imam at the Islamic Da'wah Center in St. Paul, called the stricter sanctions frustrating and disappointing. "We see this as a harsh penalty against fellow Americans only because they are practicing their faith," the Muslim scholar said. "This does not reflect the American values of tolerance and accommodation." ...
"That is against our faith and we will wait until that moment and continue working until we are pulled out of line," said Dolal, a Kenyan emigre. "This is a country of laws, not a country of men. They passed an ordinance that we feel is unfair and if we have to go to the state Supreme Court, we will."
Muslims want their cake and to eat it too: they want the prestige and privilege of a license, but they don't want to uphold the basic requirements for which the licenses were created.
DEPORT THEM!
