A British man was removed from a plane by armed police at Luton airport after a fellow passenger read a message on his mobile phone about “prayer” and reported him as a security threat.
Laolu Opebiyi, 40, from London, said he was forced to hand over his phone and supply his password in order to establish his innocence after he tried to arrange a conference call prayer with friends using WhatsApp.
A detective subsequently questioned and cleared Opebiyi but the pilot refused to allow him back on to the easyJet flight to Amsterdam last Thursday and he was forced to wait more than three hours for the next scheduled departure.
The Nigerian-born Christian believes the passenger next to him assumed he was a Muslim and jumped to the conclusion that he may be a terrorist.
“That guy doesn’t know me and within two minutes he’s judging me,” he told the Guardian. “Even if I was a Muslim, it was pretty unfair the way I was treated. I don’t think anyone, irrespective of their religion should be treated in such a way.
“If we keep on giving into this kind of bigotry and irrational fear, I dare say that the terrorists will have achieved their aim.”They also asked him about the name of the conference call prayer group, which was “ISI men” – an acronym for “iron sharpens iron”, from the Bible quote “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”. The Guardian understands that the passenger who reported Opebiyi may have misread this as “Isis”.“Someone felt I was a terrorist because they saw the word ‘prayer’ on my phone and now I stand in uncertainty about my freedom of movement in and out of the United Kingdom,” he said.
