Two Muslim Women Escorted Off Flight Due To The Way They Were Staring At Flight Attendant.

Two women in Islamic attire were removed from a JetBlue flight 487 on Saturday after landing for allegedly filming the cabin crew. They were both arrested by the Police and escorted off the aircraft.
The arrest was posted online by a Wired journalist Mark Frauenfelder whose friend, Sharon Kessler, was on the same flight as the women but the video has since been made private after it went viral.
The airline has denied the women were ejected because of their presumed religion and says it was it simply paying “due diligence” to security procedures.

Footage of the event, which has now been made private, was posted online by former Wired journalist Mark Frauenfelder.
According to Frauenfelder, Kessler, in a facebook post said that she “overheard a flight attendant tell a co-worker that she didn’t like the way two Muslim women were staring back at her.”
Kessler said that the crew member told another member that “she didn’t appreciate being stared at – she did not seem rattled or scared – just smug,”.

“It was a terrible moment, honestly. These women sat quietly, watched movies – it felt like overkill from this flight attendant.”

JetBlue in a press statement denied that the removal of the wmone was because of their religion.
A spokesman said the same thing would have happened to anyone who filmed the crew and had also occurred in the past:

“This happened on arrival at LAX and did not impact the customers more than they had to wait a couple of seconds before getting off the plane.
“My understanding is that the two women who were addressed by local law enforcement were also allowed to go on their way.”
“More than 35 million customers from many cultures and backgrounds travel on JetBlue without incident each year.
“Our crewmembers’ first priority is the safe and secure operation of our flights and as a security precaution, are asked to be aware of anyone who may be filming or taking photographs of inflight procedures or the flight deck area.
“If a crewmember believes a customer may be filming safety procedures, the crewmember may report it for further review.”
“In this instance, our crewmembers acted in accordance with security procedures. We appreciate our customers’ patience and cooperation, and apologise for the inconvenience.”

The police were responding to a report from cabin crew that the women were recording “sensitive inflight activities,” the spokesman added, saying the response was a standard security procedure.

“We have to do due diligence to make sure everyone is on the up and up,” he said.

President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday, made good his threat to deal ruthlessly with top civil servants who altered figures in the 2016 budget thereby making nonsense of his zero budget plan. No fewer than 184 top budget officials were flushed out of budget duties and sent to establishments that have little or nothing to do with budget, as a punishment for their roles in padding this year’s fiscal document, now before the National Assembly. A top official in the Budget office confirmed that 22 top officers from the Budget Office of the Federation were affected in the mass deployment. The rest were moved away from budget-related duties in other Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs. Vanguard learnt that out of the 22 top officials indicted in the budget office, four were directors on Level 17, six were deputy directors while 12 were Assistant directors. As the affected officials were moved from their posts in the Budget Office, 14 other directors said to have been ‘tested’ have been redeployed to the same office with immediate effect. The order to remove the tainted officials from their previous posts to other duties, was conveyed to the affected offices by the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, according to finding by Vanguard. All the affected officers, according to the directive, are to report in their new locations on or before the close of work today. When contacted, the Media Adviser to the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Mr. Akpadem James, confirmed the development but declined to give further details. It would b recalled that while in Saudi Arabia last month, President Buhari had threatened to punish all those who were involved in the padding of the budget. Apart from removing the director of budget, he also merged the budget office with the planning ministry.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/breaking-news-buhari-sweeps-off-184-top-officials-over-budget-padding/