Ryanair chief hits back in row over checks on Muslim men
RYANAIR boss Michael O’Leary last night denied calling for Muslim men to face extra security checks at airports after his comments in an interview were branded racist and sparked calls for a boycott of the airline.
In an article yesterday in The Times in which he discussed security, Mr O’Leary said: ‘Who are the bombers? They are going to be single males travelling on their own.
‘If you are travelling with a family of kids, on you go; the chances you are going to blow them all up is f ****** zero.
‘You can’t say stuff, because it’s racism, but it will generally be males of a Muslim persuasion.
‘If that is where the threat is coming from, deal with the threat.’
Last night the airline denied accusations of racism, saying in a statement: ‘No call for extra checks on any group or persons was made.
‘Michael was only calling for more effective airport security checks which would do away with much of the unnecessary queues at airport security today for all passengers. He apologises sincerely for any offence caused to any group.’
The statement came as a chorus of criticism grew. A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said: ‘These comments are openly racist. He advocates discrimination against males of a Muslim persuasion, which presumably is not based on specific intelligence but solely whether someone “looks or acts like a Muslim.” This is the very definition of Islamophobia.’
Tell Mama, a group that monitors anti-Muslim hatred, said: ‘Besides being discriminatory and basing judgments on the looks of people which is abhorrent, O’Leary clearly does not know about the history of terrorism, where people have used others to bypass this blunt and divisive technique.’ But condemnation was by no means universal. Dr Rakib Ehsan, a terrorism expert at the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, said: ‘What O’Leary said was clumsy, but if you look at the facts, the biggest threat in the UK and Europe is still from Islamic terrorists.’
However, he added: ‘Profiling passengers [assessing the threat they pose based on their appearance or race] may not be the solution to this as terrorists will be able to circumvent it.’
Analysis of major terrorist attacks on passenger planes in the last 32 years shows suspects were overwhelmingly Muslim.
There have been 12 terrorist attacks on jets during that time, including the Lockerbie atrocity on a Pan Am jet in 1988 and the 9/11 attacks involving four planes in 2001. Another involved British extremist Richard Reid, who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes. Only two of the 12 were caused by nonMuslim suspects – in Colombia in 1989 and in China in 1990.
On Twitter, many Muslims backed the call for a boycott of Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline that last year carried 142million people.
Syed Kamil tweeted: ‘Very simple solution – Muslims should boycott Ryanair and this CEO. Racial & religious profiling is very disturbing.’ Another Twitter user, Rabyna Choudhury, wrote: ‘Hurt their revenue and profits and he’ll change his tune quickly.’
Justin Bond, of defence thinktank the Royal United Services Institute, said: ‘This is a stupid and ridiculous idea because not all terrorists are brown-skinned.
‘If you profile a certain type of person, then the terrorist groups will use white converts or women, or even have terrorists board a plane with children.’
News UK, publishers of The Times, could not be reached for a comment.