Talk:Flying Imams controversy

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w —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.191.228.131 (talk) 13:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Sources and "Pauline" 2 Assigned Seats 3 Concerning handcuffs 4 Praying Twice 5 Suspicious Behaviors? 6 Additions to the Criticism of the Imams section 7 Jerry Klein 8 New title? 9 Reference Formatting 10 References are a bit unsettling. 11 Flying while Muslim mergefrom 12 Use of certain sources 13 not all imams resided in the Phoenix area

[edit] Sources and "Pauline"

I have a little trouble with the suspicious behaviour section. The section refers to references 3 through 7, but inspection of those references shows that except for the praying, none of the other suspicious behaviour is refered to except in opinion pieces. Although the opinion pieces list some of the behaviours they do not source it, except for this passage (actually in reference 2):

"A passenger on that flight - I'll call her "Pauline" - has inadvertently publicized some facts via a much-forwarded e-mail; she gave me more details in an interview this week. The airport police report confirms some of her claims and holds more revelations of its own. And U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader also confirmed much of Pauline's account. "

Does anyone have a link to the interview or what specific facts were confirmed by US airways? I don't think an "anonymous much forwarded email" should count as source material. Unless a better source can be provided, I think that several things from this section should be removed.

Also the reference Washington Times links are broken.66.168.28.42 15:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, as the quote notes, the author later interviewed "Pauline". Also the Washington Times site has been down all day today; hopefully it'll be up soon. It's true that the list should have better explanation of who was the source for each assertion. Korny O'Near 20:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

HI, Please read the refs again. They support all of the various susp behavior aspects, as do three evaluations now. Elizmr 01:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I read the refs again, here are the relavent sections

Reference 3: Witnesses said the men prayed in the terminal and made critical comments about the Iraq war, according to the police report, and a US Airways manager said three of the men had only one-way tickets and no checked baggage.

Reference 4: (Wash times) broken

Reference 5: The imams, who were returning from a religious conference, had prayed on their prayer rugs in the airport before the flight. After they boarded the flight, a passenger passed a note to a flight attendant. The men were taken off the airplane, handcuffed and questioned.

Reference 6: (Wash times) broken

Reference 7: · A gate agent heard some of them praying loudly · On a concourse, three shouted "Allah" · When they boarded the plane, they changed from their assigned seats, spreading out to cover the cabin · Two sat in the front row of first class even though a gate agent had told them their seats could not be upgraded. Two sat in the middle on the exit aisle. Two sat at the rear · Three asked for seat-belt extenders but did not use them. Instead the imams placed them on the floor at the ready.

But this reference is an opinion piece not a news story, further it does not give a source (except for the first allegation) So really the only sourced allegations we have are the praying loudly. I have also read the police reports, and they do not match this list.66.168.28.42 05:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

wp:or. Elizmr 07:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The whole "suspicious behaviours" section should be changed to "Allegations of Suspicious Behaviours". All of these allegations were made well after the fact by various racist pundits; none by any airline or law enforcement sources. Every last one of them -- from the "praying loudly" to the "threatening Bush" to the "didn't appear to need seat belt extenders", and most ridiculously, the "deploying themselves in the '9-11 attack formation" -- has been thoroughly debunked. There is no "controversy" between the Imams view of the facts and the airlines or TSA's view of the facts. The only controversy is between the set of agreed facts and the "facts" fabricated after the incident by a group of racist, right-wing extremists who have inexplicably been provided with the airtime and column space they have needed to spread their malicious and fallacious version of the "facts".

According to the Official Police Report: Available here

[Speaking with the US Airways Gatemanager]

He stated the passenegers were all of Middle Eastern descent and three of which only had one-way tickets and no checked luggage. He stated most of the six passengers had requested seatbelt extension.

[Speaking with the passenger who passed the note]

He witnessed six Middle Eastern Males in the gate area praying and chatning in Arabic dialect. They change chanted teh words, Allah. Allah. Ahhal. He then evesdropped into their conversation and overheard them mention Saddam and heard them curse about the US involvement. He watched them position themselves together facing a certain direction and pray again in a group. He watch them board the plaine and they took a mysterious seating arrangment throughout the plane. He stated two were seated in the front of the plane, two were seated in the middle, and two were seated in the rear of the plane. He pointed at the passengers seated in 25D and 25E.

[On removing the passengers]

Officer Besubjana and I [the author Officer Wingate, number 89] asked the six passengers ........ pointed out us to getup and leave the plane. Systematically from the rear of the plane. All parties left cooperatively. It should be noted that two of the individuals were seated in the rear, two were seated in the middle, and two were seated in the front of the aircraft. All of which stated they were travelling together.

[edit] Assigned Seats

I've read the original police report. Nowhere in it is there support for the contention that the Imams "refused to sit in their assigned seats." The seats that they were actually sitting in according to the police report were 1B, 9C, 9D, 21B, 25D and 25E. No mention is made whether these are their assigned seats. 21B is an exit row seat, 1B has a closet between it and an exit, and the other 4 seats are a good distance away from any exit [1], so the contention that they were systematically blocking the exit rows is false on its face. I am removing these claims. If you wish to reintroduce these assertions, please back them up with the actual assigned seat numbers, a statement from a witness saying that they refused to sit in their seats, and a documentation showing that either the police report or the seat map is in error. 69.49.165.251 23:51, 18 December 2006 (UTC)jvance

I have reintroduced those claims under the section "Claims of suspicious behavior" and I have added the rebuttal to "Conflicting accounts".--Javance 04:59, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Was this a A330 as User 69.49.165.251 claims? This is not a plane the USAir normally uses domestically and the seating chart given is the US<->Europe flight arrangement, not a US domestic one. 148.63.236.141 22:58, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

The police report states it's an A330. It could very well be wrong about that, just like it appears to be wrong about the weights of the imams. If you've got better information then great. --Javance 02:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks very likely that the plane was actually an A320, and the police report is in error. I've dug around looking for an authoritative source. I've found compelling sources but nothing official (aircraft hobbyist blogs, airliners.net photos). If it was an A320, then the Imams were indeed occupying or sitting near all the exits. The question still remains whether those were (with one exception) their assigned seats. I will remove the reference to the A330 seating chart from the article. --Javance 03:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Concerning handcuffs

I have removed the section about handcuffs from the "Conflicting Statements" section. There were no conflicts between the three cited statements. A reasonable scenario consistent with all three is that the Imams voluntarily deplaned, were interviewed in the airport, handcuffed for transportation to the police station, and then the handcuffs were removed while they were kept in holding cells. 69.49.165.251 02:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)jvance That is your own WP:OR. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 02:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Note that I did not put my speculation in the article itself. In fact, the "conflicting statements" is entirely WP:OR, unless you can come up with a source that explicitly states there is a conflict in the statements. Removing as WP:OR 69.49.165.251 06:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)jvance

The Washington Times notes the contradiction explicitly, here. Unless you have an objection, I'll stick that section back in. Korny O'Near 16:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't. There are four events that occurred in the Imams detainment. I should make a table but the table widget looks much more complex than an html table :(

1) they were escorted off the plane,

2) they were held in the jetway,

3) they were walked to the airport police station,

4) they were held at the police station for 5 hours.

Now let's look at your link, or Audrey Hudson's original article. In the first quote Shahin says he was handcuffed but does NOT say when. In the second quote - from Audrey's article and not directly from Shahin, by the way, it's stated that the Imams were not handcuffed during events 1 or 4 but is silent about events 2 and 3. Now read this from the Democracy Now interview:

We complied totally with the police, cooperated, fully cooperated, because we don't want to do anything wrong. So they took us to the jet way of the plane, and they asked us to stand there for 45 minutes, don't talk, don’t do this, don't answer phone, don’t do any phone calls. And I asked them, “Please, just give me one minute to say one statement,” because I want to tell them that we notified the FBI in charge and police department of Minneapolis that we have this conference, so traveling together is not a strange thing. But they did not allow me to say this statement. Even one of the policemen, he said, “If you keep asking us this, I am going to arrest you.” Then, I have no other option but to keep silent.
Then, after that, they handcuffed us one by one, and they took us to the police department in the airport. And this is -- up to now, I cannot forget the passengers’ eyes were looking at us when they handcuffed us and took us to the police department.

That's event 3. They were handcuffed in the airport jetway, not on the plane, and then walked in handcuffs through the airport.--Javance 19:58, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Having reread the Washington Times link from above, I found this sentence: "Specifically, he said, they were led off the plane and interrogated all the while in handcuffs". However, the adjacent quote from Mr. Shahin does not say that. I found using Google News several copies of the original AP article, and nowhere does he talk about being led off the plane in handcuffs. I can only conclude that the quoted sentence is the result of sloppy journalism either by the Washington Times or the AP, and that the whole handcuff thing is a manufactured controversy.--Javance 20:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Manufactured it may be, but I think this discrepancy (including what you've uncovered) is important enough to be included in the article; otherwise people will just think it's an omission. Korny O'Near 20:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

If so, then it should be noted that there is an additional eyewitness that states the men were taken away from the jetway in handcuffs. Go here and click on the link on the left titled "US Airways passengers talk about the removal." I'm not sure how to link to CNN Video.--Javance 22:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting. CNN, unfortunately, only lets you view the video once, and then you have to be subscribed to see it again. From what I gather, it appears this passenger (Sydney Liles) was speculating about things she couldn't see - she said, "apparently they were all in handcuffs by the end". Still, it's worth including in the article. Korny O'Near 22:35, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Good reorg. I've also reinstated the "swapping seats" portion of "suspicious behavior" and moved the rebuttal to "Conflicting accounts. Also, renamed "Suspicious behavor" to "Claimed suspicious behavior" to be more NPOV. I'd really like to find the US Airways official statement and reference that for the suspicious behavior, though.--Javance 02:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Now the Washington Times has contradicted itself. First it says that Shahin stated that he was never handcuffed[2], then it states that Shahin stated he was handcuffed for "10 or 15 minutes."[3] Okay Audrey, which is it? Now, the "pro Imam" is saying things like "several hours" and "led off the plane in handcuffs" which also contradict what Imam Shahin says in the very same interview.

Can we at least now say there is no dispute regarding whether they were handcuffed? How can we say this without tripping over WP:OR?--Javance 12:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

All I think we can say is that it is a disputed point and give the refs. Elizmr 14:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There certainly is a dispute - the Wash. Times may not have contradicted itself, it may have just quoted Shahin saying (possibly) contradictory things. The real problem, I think, is that no one directly involved has given a full account of what happened - not Shahin, who's only doled out bits and pieces, not any of the other imams, who have said next to nothing, and not the police. Until we get that, the article will have to stay in somewhat of a limbo. Korny O'Near 14:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Also note that this is now the basis for a lawsuit by the imams against US Airways, so we are unlikely to get further full accounts. Elizmr 15:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

If this were a contradictory statement by Shahin, or a new interview, I'm sure Audrey would have made a point of that. What we see here is a piece from her one phone interview that she did not include in her older article. Shahin's single statement to her has been doled out in bits and pieces to manufacture a contradiction.--Javance 18:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Praying Twice

The source for this is an uncorroborated forwarded email attributed to a "Pauline" and quoted in an opinion piece in the New York Daily Post. It is not supported by the police report or any other eyewitness reports. I assert that it is not a WP:RS. Furthermore, even if the report of praying twice is true, it is wrong about Sharia requiring only one prayer around sunset: the Salat prayers Maghrib and Isha'a can occur at sunset and dusk, one right after the other. Removing. --69.49.165.251 09:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)jvance

Unless I see some evidence otherwise, I'm pretty sure an opinion column in a major newspaper by a well-known journalist counts as a reliable source by Wikipedia's standards. Korny O'Near 20:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Totally ridiculous -- if it was fact, the newspaper would not have published it as "opinion"

[edit] Suspicious Behaviors?

Can someone please explain to me how not having checked baggage is suspicious? I used to fly for business frequently, week-long trips, and I never checked baggage. Am I a terrorist?--69.49.165.251 09:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)jvance

By itself it's not very suspicious, but in conjuction with other pieces of data it can (and did) add to the suspicion. Korny O'Near 20:44, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

That's the thing, though. None of these things separately are suspicious. I've done all of them together (except for praying) in a group - the difference being it was my manager up in First Class and us peons scattered in pairs throughout the cabin. I'm pretty sure Northrup Grumman wasn't intent on blowing up the plane, though. Not suggesting an edit change, just yakkin'--Javance 02:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Please note that the article says that these were the behaviors felt to be susp by the passengers and airline crews. There is no judgement in the article about whether they were or in fact problematic. Elizmr 06:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Some of the behaviors were "felt to be" suspicious, others were clearly misreported, still others may not have happened at all. Regarding seatbelt extensions, I watched one of the CNN videos from the first day, and got a clear look at Shahin and Sadeddin. If Shahin's 6'1" as stated in the police report, then he certainly doesn't weigh 206 lbs. 280 is more like it. If he doesn't have a 46" waist, then it's pretty close. Standard airline belts will accommodate up to a 46" waist. There was a side shot of Sadeddin and he's got a big belly too. Regarding the seating assignments, you'd think if they really did switch around as claimed in the Washington Times piece, then somebody would have published their assigned seats and compared that with where they were reported to be sitting in the police report. Of course, all this stuff can't go into the article, but the more I've looked at this, the more the media coverage stinks.--Javance 09:12, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Javance please review WP:OR. These are the behaviors which were cited which caused the imams to be removed from the airplane according to the airline and the press. Elizmr 14:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the police report 3 of the Imam's had no checked baggage and 1-way tickets. Should be corrected? It may be that the police only noted the 3 that had 'no checked baggage' AND 'one way tickets'. (On a side comment, having no checked baggage and one way tickets is (unfortunately) one of the long running flags that Airlines are told to watch out for. The fact that they were RETURNING home from the conference easily explains the oneway tickets, but those 2 factors are watch items, and helped highten existing concerns. I know a 70-80 yo woman (I think she is a great-grandmother) who had to be checked be police because she fit one of these 'profile' flags).

Yeah, that's true; I changed it to the correct data. Korny O'Near 12:37, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additions to the Criticism of the Imams section

I have added the following text (to the Criticism of the Imams section), based on Debra Burlingame's piece in the The Wall Street Journal (6 December 2006), entitled On a Wing and a Prayer (Grievance theater at Minneapolis International Airport):

Denouncing "the provocative agenda of these imams," Debra Burlingame opined that "it is nothing short of obscene that these six religious leaders (…) chose to turn that airport into a stage and that airplane into a prop in the service of their need for grievance theater." Shouting "Allahu Akbar" several times at the gate for their flight "was just the opening act," continues Burlingame, the sister of the pilot of the plane which was crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. "After boarding, they did not take their assigned seats but dispersed to seats in the first row of first class, in the midcabin exit rows and in the rear--the exact configuration of the 9/11 execution teams. The head of the group, seated closest to the cockpit, and two others asked for a seatbelt extension, kept on board for obese people. A heavy metal buckle at the end of a long strap, it can easily be used as a lethal weapon. The three men rolled them up and placed them on the floor under their seats. And lest this entire incident be written off as simple cultural ignorance, a frightened Arabic-speaking passenger pulled aside a crew member and translated the imams' suspicious conversations, which included angry denunciations of Americans, furious grumblings about U.S. foreign policy, Osama Bin Laden and 'killing Saddam.'" Asteriks 23:04, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• In the same section, I have also added an opinion piece to the conservative commentators criticizing the imams' behaviour. Asteriks 02:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jerry Klein

On Nov. 26, 2006 this controversy was the topic that led radio host Jerry Klein of WMAL 630 AM, Washington DC to gauge his audience’s reaction to the suggestion that all Muslims in America be forced to wear "identifying markers. ...I'm thinking either it should be an arm band, a crescent moon arm band, or it should be a crescent moon tattoo. ...If it means that we have to round them up and do a tattoo in a place where everybody knows where to find it, then that's what we'll have to do."[31] To his shock some suggested they should be sent to "encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans".[31]

could someone explain why this section is notable enough to be in the article? Elizmr 07:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New title?

"Flying Imams Controversy" gets the point across, but I think it could be better worded.

Suggestions:

Flight 300 Imam Controversy

U.S. Air Flight 300 Imam Controversy

Fortune4260 00:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely love the title. Please don't change it!  :=) Elizmr 01:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

While the title "Flying Imams" has been used almost exclusively by Conservative pundits there is nothing POV about the wording, and the story has been regularly referred to by this name. Therefor I would agree that it should remain unchanged.--Wowaconia 06:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference Formatting

Can someone figure out where the formatting for the references went wrong? Right now in my browser, all the footnotes seem to appear in the text of the article, but the References section at the end only shows 5 total, the last one having a bunch of unparsed wikicode. I tried to edit the page, but I can't tell what or where the problem is. Nathanm mn 05:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Fixed by Korny O'Near. Nathanm mn 07:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References are a bit unsettling.

This article carries a heavy bias against the Imams that is founded on shaky references. For example, Ann Coulter is used (in the article quoted here, she writes "profiling Muslims is like profiling the Klan"), as is Katherine Kersten, a right wing pundit here in the Twin Cities. Investor's Business Daily seems to be a major source for much of this article, but it's editorial page lives out on the extreme right wing and there's no way one could be asked to take their opinion on a group of Muslim religious leaders as unbiased or objective. In short, I believe this article needs a strong rewriting using true journalistic news pieces instead of outrageous punditisms. 71.220.53.241 05:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)Karmastray

You might not be aware of it, but almost all of the references you're citing are in the "Criticism of the imams" section, where bias is appropriate. Korny O'Near 12:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flying while Muslim mergefrom

I've added a mergefrom Flying while Muslim. This looks like the larger and better referenced article.

However, could people also note my comment back at that article's talk page, Flying while fill-in-the-blank ? These are really part of a larger problem. Is there an article which discusses the larger issues of heightened sensitivities and rejection of 'difference' as intolerable in 'certain' situations? Note that someone put a mergeto Racial profiling on that article back in February, so it is kind of obvious there's a larger issue. Shenme 20:10, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Definetly we should mention the Flying imam controversy in this article, but consider the length of the two articles. After merger the article will largely become an article on the Flying imams. Thus it would be unfair to label it as "Flying while muslim". On the other hand, "Flying while Muslim" is a concept that is includes more than just the Imam controversy, thus it is inaccurate to label the merged article "Flying imams controversy". Best to keep both articles seperate.Bless sins 00:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The "Flying Imams" article and the "Flying while Muslim" article should be kept separate. The first refers to a specific incident, the second to a general concept. Merging the two would essentially remove the "Flying while Muslim" article, since its content would be entirely dominated by the single "Flying imams" incident. Rmunn 13:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• support don't need two categories stating the same thing.--Sefringle 05:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose: should be merged to Racial profiling. Merging here would be like merging "truck" to the article of a specific truck just because the latter was larger and had more details. (SEWilco 19:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC))
• support largely redudant articles. This article simply expands on the flying-while-muslim concept to include how a group of muslims exploited the concept for publicity purposes. Dman727 02:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Where do you think the other article should be redirected to? (SEWilco 02:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC))

Here, although I support could support redirecting it to racial profiling as well. I could make a case for either I think, however this article is an expansion of the issue FWM, while racial profiling is a little more generic. Dman727 02:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose, per SEWilco's reasons above. Korny O'Near 15:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose to any merge. The "Flying Imams" article is a news episode. Flying while Muslim is a general issue of profiling. In must not be merged into racial profiling for the same reason we don'r merge all trucks into Truck article: this is separate topic, and quite hot, too. Concluding, all there mentioned topics must be cleanly kept as separate issues, (since they are), with adequate cross-referencing, bearing in mind inevitable overlaps following from the wikipedia:Summary style. `'mikka 00:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of certain sources

There have been multiple reversions to the claim that CAIR is"(an organization with documented ties to designated terrror groups [3] Hamas and Al-Qaeda[4][5][6][7][8][9])".

References four through nine are:

1. A WorldNetDaily article by a man named Joe Kaufman, who runs an organization called Americans Against Hate. The centrepiece of their website is a big graphic that says "Fifth Column Imam Flyers".
2. A WorldNetDaily article by a WND editor, which factually reports that a senior member of CAIR was convicted of transferring money to an Arab politician, whose political party the State Department has designated as a terrorist group (and which also forms the legitimately elected government of Palestine).
3. A WorldNetDaily article by Daniel Pipes which has nothing to do with the question at hand; simply reporting that an out-of-court settlement was reached in a defamation suit launched by CAIR, and then going on to make sweeping and bizzare allegations "...declined to answer whether it aims to convert American Christians to Islam..." in classic McCarthyian style.
4. A Delco Times article which mentions the financial-crimes convictions in the context of conservatives criticizing CAIR.
5. A WorldNetDaily article by the Center for Security Policy, which is a neoconservative / Likudnik think tank with an axe to grind and members like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.
6. A National Review Online article which claims that CAIR grew out of another organization called the "Islamic Association for Palestine", which the article alleges was Hamas-linked, and further alleges that CAIR accepted donations from "Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development" which was subsequently classified by the US Treasury as HAMAS-linked.

One, three, and five we can dismiss out of hand as reliable sources, because they were all written by highly controversial people, deeply involved in the controversy and not "generally regarded as trustworthy". The Delco article is fine but it just reports what conservatives are saying. The other sources, while they at least make some factual points, also editorialize and speculate extensively and ought to be replaced with normal mainstream news organizations.

Talk about "documented ties to Hamas" is vague and unfair. The article should instead say (and probably not in the lede), that some of CAIR's founding members previously worked for an organization which was alleged to support HAMAS, a political party which the US has designated a terrorist organization, and that a senior CAIR member was convicted of sending money to a member of this political party.

Talk about "documented ties to al Qaeda" is completely scurillous, reprehensible, unsupported even by the highly biased sources given, and probably defamatory in nature.

Continually restoring such obviously biased and incomplete sources strikes me as not only bad editing, but bad faith.

Eleland 15:09, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Since there are obviously strong emotions on both sides, let me interject here before this turns into a big argument about WorldNetDaily or any other source. I agree that the statement about CAIR doesn't belong in the article (and I tried to take it out at one point myself), though not for the reasons you cite. It doesn't belong because it's just not relevant to the article. If there were criticism of the imams that specifically mentioned their connection to CAIR, and stated that that was a strike against them for reasons X, Y and Z, then that could be included - in the "Criticism" section. As it is, the current statement about CAIR is just a "gotcha", and that's not what Wikipedia is about. Korny O'Near 17:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

There are other sources in the Wikipedia article about CAIR. The Wikipedia article can not be a source but the sources can be reused here. The preceding "previously worked" sentence is incorrect, as one of the CAIR founders was president of the other organization after CAIR was founded. (SEWilco 18:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC))

[edit] not all imams resided in the Phoenix area

At least one of them is a resident of Bakersfield, California. This was stated on local radio a couple months after the incident.

In particular, one resides in Bakersfield, California and at least one resides in Tucon, Arizona. Here's a link: http://www.hannity.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-246074.html. Google for "bakersfield "flying imams"" for more info. Frotz 01:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)