… rat out your neighbors. Especially if they pray to the wrong god:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Five Muslims who were detained after praying at an American football game want to turn the incident into a tool to teach Americans about Islam.
While at a New York Giants against New Orleans Saints game at Giants Stadium on September 19, the New Jersey residents were removed from their seats and questioned by FBI agents after other fans saw them bow to the ground as part of the five-daily Muslim prayers.
“As Muslims, we just have to pray when it’s time to pray,” Sami Shaban told a news conference in New York on Wednesday. “We thought nothing of it. I pray in malls, I pray everywhere.”
The 27-year-old law school student said he and his friends were questioned for about 25 minutes, missing part of the second half of the game. After they were released, an FBI agent told him they had been unwitting victims of racial profiling, Shaban said.
The FBI said the men were questioned because they congregated near an air duct at the stadium, not because they were praying. But the men dismissed that explanation.
Golly, reporting people to the police because they pray. In a socially unapproved manner. That kind of thing happens in places like, oh, Saudi Arabia, of China, or back in the Soviet Union when it existed. Freedom! It’s wonderful, isn’t it?
2:46 pm on November 3, 2005
