Air Canada is under fire after one of their employees allegedly forced a 12-year-old girl to remove her hijab before getting on her flight in San Francisco.
Fatima Abdelrahman, a player on the US Squash team, said she was flying to Toronto Aug. 1 for a competition — and had already passed through security — when a gate agent asked her to take her headscarf off.
“The person at the gate asked me to take my scarf off even though I had already passed security and they had checked my passport,” the preteen told CityNews Toronto.
The young athlete asked if she could go to a private area to take off her religious head covering, but the airline employees refused, she said.
“I said ‘I feel like this is an open space what about a room?’ And they’re like ‘no’…” she recalled.
The allegations went viral when Abdelrahman’s sister Sabreen called out the airline on Twitter.
“@AirCanada pls explain why you pulled aside my 12yr old sister for flight 758 making her take off her hijab AT THE GATE?? AFTER she already passed security??” Sabreen wrote.
“Thx for ruining her experience as the first U.S. National Team Squash player in Hijab + her first time traveling alone.”
The tweet racked up over 5,000 likes and 1,900 retweets — with man people coming to the young girl’s defense.
“@AirCanada do you normally subject your 12 year old solo passengers to unexpected additional screenings AT the gate?” one person wrote. “This type of treatment is 100% unacceptable. Extremely evident of the lack of training and profiling you allow your employees to get away with.”
The airline responded to the tweet — but referred to Fatima as Sabreen’s daughter, instead of younger sister.
“Hello Sabreen, we are truly sorry to hear about this situation and we certainly understand your concerns. May you please DM us your daughter’s booking reference so we can better follow-up?” the airline rep wrote.
Folks quickly jumped on the gaffe.
“@aircanada Shame on you. Try again,” one person responded.
The airline didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The post Air Canada blasted for asking 12-year-old girl to remove hijab appeared first on Fox USA Live.
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