Thursday, September 28, 2006

Paranoia In The Age Of Terror

A Seville University lecturer, Pablo Gutiérrez Vega, was taking a plane from Mallorca to Dortmund at the end of August. Gutíerrez has a beard, nothing tremendously unusual about that, but this beard was enough to convince some other passengers on the plane that they were in the company of a potentially dangerous Islamic militant. He was temporarily forced to leave the plane by the pressure of other passengers, and with the apparent compliance of the captain, on the grounds that he looked (to them) like a Muslim. So if you are travelling, don't forget to shave.

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