NYC Student Stopped on Staten Island Ferry For Wearing Arabic T-Shirt

by Democracy Now (reposted)

Mon, Oct 23, 2006 7:41AM

Hunter College student Stephanie Schwartz says Coast Guard officials stopped her two weeks ago aboard the ferry. During the summer, Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar was stopped by security officials for wearing the same t-shirt at JFK Airport. He was forced to change the shirt before boarding a JetBlue flight. Later today a protest will take place at the Staten Island Ferry in New York city. Recently, a woman riding the ferry was stopped, surrounded and questioned by U.S. Coast Guard officials. She was wearing a T-shirt that had Arabic print on it. It read "We Will Not Be Silent."

The student was Stephanie Schwartz -- and she joins me now here in our Firehouse studio.

Raed Jarrar is still with us from Washington DC. A few months ago Raed was wearing a similar t-shirt as he was boarding a JetBlue airways flight at Kennedy airport in New York. Airport officials forced him to change his T-Shirt before getting on the plane.

We left a message with the Coast Guard public affairs office but did not hear back from them.

* Stephanie Schwartz, Hunter College Student who was recently stopped by Coast Guard officials for wearing T-shirt with Arabic writing

* Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi blogger and architect. His blog "Raed in the Middle" is at raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com. Raed is Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange.

LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/23/1425232

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