Earlier today [December 21st] YouTube prankster Adam Selah and a friend were reportedly removed from a Delta Airlines flight for speaking to each other in Arabic. Selah recorded a video of he and his friend being escorted off of the plane and quickly posted it to Twitter where it has already gone viral with over 300,000 views.

Immediately as the incident was taking place, Saleh took to Twitter to express his grievance stating,

“Delta airlines kicked us out for speaking Arabic to my mom on the plane and with my friend slim… WTFFFFFFFF please spread”.

In his Twitter video he can also be seen exclaiming why Delta airlines had him removed saying,

“We’re getting kicked out because we spoke a different language…This is 2016. Delta airlines are kicking us out because we spoke a different language”.

He even addressed one of his fellow passengers, who complained, asking them,

“I spoke a word, and you said you feel uncomfortable?”

Saleh and Slim Albaher were due to fly from London to New York City before being removed. The two were finally placed on a second flight, with no regard to their plans, after a second complete search by security.

Due to Saleh’s immense following of 1.5 million online subscribers, this news has spread like wildfire resulting in the new #BoycottDelta hashtag swarming social media. Former Delta customers across the globe have begun voicing their opinions against how Delta handled this particular incident.

Although Delta has made claim to handle this situation ‘seriously” and is trying ‘to understand what happened’, this is not the first time Delta has dropped the ball when it comes to post-911 discrimination toward Muslims and Middle Eastern people in airports.

This past August, Delta removed a Muslim couple on their way home to Cincinnati from Paris after an employee made a complaint about him being uncomfortable with them aboard the plane. But Delta isn’t the only culprit, this specific form of  oppression has become a trend among airlines in Europe over the past few years.

In the same month a trio of British siblings were removed from a British Easyjet flight heading toward Naples after passengers accusing them of being members of the terrorist organization ISIL or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Sadly, it is hard to tell if incidents like this will seize or continue in the coming years with global tension against Muslims and Middle Eastern people on the rise. Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson from the Council on American Relations or CAIR spoke with Al Jazeera stating,

“Despite world events, the world is a diverse place where people speak different languages, wear different attire, and look different. That’s not justification for removing some from a  plane.”

Only time will tell if the world will mature and let people board planes regardless of what language they may speak.

December 21, 2016