02-26-2007, 07:11 AM
Old news. Again: don't know if it's already been posted here. (Hard to keep track of the countless islamoterrorist stuff)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/31/news/airport.php
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>72 Muslims suspended at the Paris airport </b>
By Katrin Bennhold
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
ROISSY, France: The French authorities charged with assessing security risks at Charles de Gaulle airport have stripped 72 suspect Muslim workers of their security clearance, but about a dozen others are still working in the most restricted areas, including some cleaning planes and handling baggage for flights to the United States, according to a government security official and the airport workers themselves.
Some terrorism experts are asking why the government has not moved faster to suspend access for employees who may constitute a security risk, especially since details have emerged about some of the suspended workers. <b>Several of them are suspected of having trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and one was friends with the "shoe bomber," according to the security official in charge of the case.</b>
Some of those suspended have sued, complaining that they were unfairly targeted, and labor unions have taken up their case. Others, notified more than a month ago that they might lose their security clearance, are still waiting for a summons from the authorities and hope to retain their access badges.
One is Hassane Tariqui, 37, a French citizen of Moroccan origin who supervises cleaners inside passenger planes, most of them bound for the United States. On Sept. 21, he received a letter from the authorities informing him that his attitude and personal behavior posed a risk to airport security.
But he is still in his job, cleaning planes for Air France, Delta, Continental and American. On Monday, he said, he was on five U.S.-bound planes, including an Air France flight headed for New York.
"If they really think I am a security risk, why am I still allowed to work here?" said Tariqui, who has been employed for 16 years at Charles de Gaulle, France's main international airport.
Labor unions say that since April about 90 Muslim employees at the airport received letters identical to the one sent to Tariqui.
Investigators have had Charles de Gaulle under scrutiny for signs of Islamic radicalism for some time. The airport, north of Paris, is situated near troubled suburbs where rioting erupted last year. Unions estimate that at least one-fifth of its 83,000 employees are Muslim.
Jacques Lebrot, the official in charge of the investigation, said in an interview that some of the employees who had received the letter were still working because French law required him to give them an opportunity to respond before he could take away their accreditation, and it took time to summon them all.
All of the men who received the letter came to the attention of intelligence services in an anti-terrorist probe at French airports ordered by the Interior Ministry in May 2005, Lebrot said, and 72 had their security clearance canceled after questioning. He said that an additional 68 who were investigated had been cleared and never received the letter.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Homeland Security Department, Joanna Gonzalez, declined to comment, saying the matter fell under French jurisdiction.
Lebrot, deputy prefect in the Seine- Saint-Denis district where the airport is located, said the letters had targeted employees suspected of links with movements or people who rejected "France and our values," or who were suspected of having traveled to countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some who lost their accreditation are believed to have spent time in terrorist training camps and extremist Islamic schools in the two countries, Lebrot said, without giving details.
<b>One employee, he said, was found to have been a friend of Richard Reid, a London-born convert to Islam who tried to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001 using explosives hidden in his shoes. Reid is serving a life sentence in Colorado.
Another man is believed to have been close to a senior figure in the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, an Algerian terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda, Lebrot said.</b>
French terrorism experts have expressed dismay over the time it took to identify such suspects.
"We need an emergency procedure to revoke badges, provided that the intelligence that calls the security of an employee into question is serious," said Alain Marsaud, head of the National Assembly's study group on civil defense and France's anti-terrorism chief in the 1980s.
According to the CFDT labor union, the men who received letters worked for at least eight companies operational at Charles de Gaulle. These included ACNA, an aircraft cleaning company owned by Air France; Chronopost, an express mail-delivery company owned by the French postal service; Connecting Bag Services, a subsidiary of Worldwide Flight Services, a Texas-based cargo handling company; and FedEx, the American delivery firm.
Earlier this year, the police shut down 29 makeshift Muslim prayer rooms that had been set up in locker rooms at the airport, with the written approval of companies like Connecting Bag Services. The closures coincided with publication of "The Mosques of Roissy," a book by Philippe de Villiers, an extreme-right politician, that briefly climbed the best-seller list after claiming that the airport had become a hotbed of radical Islamic thought.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is seeking the French presidency on a tough platform against illegal immigration, visited the airport in April to examine security arrangements. At the time he said that intelligence services were investigating 122 airport workers and that 60 percent of them risked losing their security clearance.
Muslim organizations and human rights groups have accused the authorities of waging an anti-Muslim campaign in a presidential election year.
The CFDT, France's largest union, filed a discrimination complaint in mid-October, and at least 10 airport workers who lost their jobs - nine baggage handlers and a security guard - have sued. A hearing for at least six of the cases is scheduled for Nov. 10 at the Cergy-Pontoise administrative court outside Paris.
The plaintiffs are practicing Muslims who have worked at the airport for three to nine years; the nine baggage handlers are of North African descent, while the security guard is a Frenchman who converted to Islam and married a Moroccan woman.
The questions they were asked by Lebrot's team after receiving the letter focused on their religious practices, one of their lawyers said.
"They were asked how often they go to mosque, whether they had been to Mecca and whether they know any imams," the lawyer, Eric Moutet, said in a telephone interview. "We have not seen any objective evidence against our clients. The only common denominator we see today is that they are all Muslim."
Lebrot, who has not made available any evidence against the men on the grounds that this would compromise intelligence sources, insists that the decision to bar some airport employees has nothing to do with their religion.
"Monsieur or Madame X who goes to pray in the mosque and travels to Mecca for the pilgrimage is not a problem for us," he said.
His office, he added, had authorized 57,532 airport access badges in the first nine months of 2006. "When people accuse us of targeting Muslims," he said, "they only talk about those who received the letter, never about the tens of thousands who didn't."
While many complaints have focused on alleged discrimination, other critics have questioned the probe's efficiency.
A baggage handler for Connecting Bag Services who asked not to be identified said that about half of the company's 850 employees were on temporary contracts. "Many of these guys who come in for two weeks are bearded," he said in reference to the traditional Muslim beard that is usually a sign of religiosity. "Maybe they should be vetted more."
Other European countries have also confronted the possibility that Islamic radicals could be employed at their airports.
In Germany, a probe of airport staff was begun after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and vetting procedures for access badges were tightened in 2002, Interior Ministry officials said. In Britain, vetting procedures at airports are constantly updated, a Transport Department spokesman said.
France ran an extraordinary security check on all airport employees from Sept. 12, 2001, to early 2002, and in 2003 created Lebrot's post, for the first time dedicating a local government office to Charles de Gaulle airport. The probe ordered last year will continue, Lebrot said, adding that the men whose security clearance has been revoked will be monitored by domestic intelligence services.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/31/news/airport.php
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>72 Muslims suspended at the Paris airport </b>
By Katrin Bennhold
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
ROISSY, France: The French authorities charged with assessing security risks at Charles de Gaulle airport have stripped 72 suspect Muslim workers of their security clearance, but about a dozen others are still working in the most restricted areas, including some cleaning planes and handling baggage for flights to the United States, according to a government security official and the airport workers themselves.
Some terrorism experts are asking why the government has not moved faster to suspend access for employees who may constitute a security risk, especially since details have emerged about some of the suspended workers. <b>Several of them are suspected of having trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and one was friends with the "shoe bomber," according to the security official in charge of the case.</b>
Some of those suspended have sued, complaining that they were unfairly targeted, and labor unions have taken up their case. Others, notified more than a month ago that they might lose their security clearance, are still waiting for a summons from the authorities and hope to retain their access badges.
One is Hassane Tariqui, 37, a French citizen of Moroccan origin who supervises cleaners inside passenger planes, most of them bound for the United States. On Sept. 21, he received a letter from the authorities informing him that his attitude and personal behavior posed a risk to airport security.
But he is still in his job, cleaning planes for Air France, Delta, Continental and American. On Monday, he said, he was on five U.S.-bound planes, including an Air France flight headed for New York.
"If they really think I am a security risk, why am I still allowed to work here?" said Tariqui, who has been employed for 16 years at Charles de Gaulle, France's main international airport.
Labor unions say that since April about 90 Muslim employees at the airport received letters identical to the one sent to Tariqui.
Investigators have had Charles de Gaulle under scrutiny for signs of Islamic radicalism for some time. The airport, north of Paris, is situated near troubled suburbs where rioting erupted last year. Unions estimate that at least one-fifth of its 83,000 employees are Muslim.
Jacques Lebrot, the official in charge of the investigation, said in an interview that some of the employees who had received the letter were still working because French law required him to give them an opportunity to respond before he could take away their accreditation, and it took time to summon them all.
All of the men who received the letter came to the attention of intelligence services in an anti-terrorist probe at French airports ordered by the Interior Ministry in May 2005, Lebrot said, and 72 had their security clearance canceled after questioning. He said that an additional 68 who were investigated had been cleared and never received the letter.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Homeland Security Department, Joanna Gonzalez, declined to comment, saying the matter fell under French jurisdiction.
Lebrot, deputy prefect in the Seine- Saint-Denis district where the airport is located, said the letters had targeted employees suspected of links with movements or people who rejected "France and our values," or who were suspected of having traveled to countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some who lost their accreditation are believed to have spent time in terrorist training camps and extremist Islamic schools in the two countries, Lebrot said, without giving details.
<b>One employee, he said, was found to have been a friend of Richard Reid, a London-born convert to Islam who tried to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001 using explosives hidden in his shoes. Reid is serving a life sentence in Colorado.
Another man is believed to have been close to a senior figure in the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, an Algerian terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda, Lebrot said.</b>
French terrorism experts have expressed dismay over the time it took to identify such suspects.
"We need an emergency procedure to revoke badges, provided that the intelligence that calls the security of an employee into question is serious," said Alain Marsaud, head of the National Assembly's study group on civil defense and France's anti-terrorism chief in the 1980s.
According to the CFDT labor union, the men who received letters worked for at least eight companies operational at Charles de Gaulle. These included ACNA, an aircraft cleaning company owned by Air France; Chronopost, an express mail-delivery company owned by the French postal service; Connecting Bag Services, a subsidiary of Worldwide Flight Services, a Texas-based cargo handling company; and FedEx, the American delivery firm.
Earlier this year, the police shut down 29 makeshift Muslim prayer rooms that had been set up in locker rooms at the airport, with the written approval of companies like Connecting Bag Services. The closures coincided with publication of "The Mosques of Roissy," a book by Philippe de Villiers, an extreme-right politician, that briefly climbed the best-seller list after claiming that the airport had become a hotbed of radical Islamic thought.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is seeking the French presidency on a tough platform against illegal immigration, visited the airport in April to examine security arrangements. At the time he said that intelligence services were investigating 122 airport workers and that 60 percent of them risked losing their security clearance.
Muslim organizations and human rights groups have accused the authorities of waging an anti-Muslim campaign in a presidential election year.
The CFDT, France's largest union, filed a discrimination complaint in mid-October, and at least 10 airport workers who lost their jobs - nine baggage handlers and a security guard - have sued. A hearing for at least six of the cases is scheduled for Nov. 10 at the Cergy-Pontoise administrative court outside Paris.
The plaintiffs are practicing Muslims who have worked at the airport for three to nine years; the nine baggage handlers are of North African descent, while the security guard is a Frenchman who converted to Islam and married a Moroccan woman.
The questions they were asked by Lebrot's team after receiving the letter focused on their religious practices, one of their lawyers said.
"They were asked how often they go to mosque, whether they had been to Mecca and whether they know any imams," the lawyer, Eric Moutet, said in a telephone interview. "We have not seen any objective evidence against our clients. The only common denominator we see today is that they are all Muslim."
Lebrot, who has not made available any evidence against the men on the grounds that this would compromise intelligence sources, insists that the decision to bar some airport employees has nothing to do with their religion.
"Monsieur or Madame X who goes to pray in the mosque and travels to Mecca for the pilgrimage is not a problem for us," he said.
His office, he added, had authorized 57,532 airport access badges in the first nine months of 2006. "When people accuse us of targeting Muslims," he said, "they only talk about those who received the letter, never about the tens of thousands who didn't."
While many complaints have focused on alleged discrimination, other critics have questioned the probe's efficiency.
A baggage handler for Connecting Bag Services who asked not to be identified said that about half of the company's 850 employees were on temporary contracts. "Many of these guys who come in for two weeks are bearded," he said in reference to the traditional Muslim beard that is usually a sign of religiosity. "Maybe they should be vetted more."
Other European countries have also confronted the possibility that Islamic radicals could be employed at their airports.
In Germany, a probe of airport staff was begun after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and vetting procedures for access badges were tightened in 2002, Interior Ministry officials said. In Britain, vetting procedures at airports are constantly updated, a Transport Department spokesman said.
France ran an extraordinary security check on all airport employees from Sept. 12, 2001, to early 2002, and in 2003 created Lebrot's post, for the first time dedicating a local government office to Charles de Gaulle airport. The probe ordered last year will continue, Lebrot said, adding that the men whose security clearance has been revoked will be monitored by domestic intelligence services.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->