Interesting essay by Riz

Thanks for sharing this article, Riz is such an articulate man and this in particular resonated with me:

But airport security did not get the memo. Returning to the glamour of Luton Airport after our festival win, ironically named British intelligence officers frogmarched me to an unmarked room where they insulted, threatened, and then attacked me.

“What kinda film you making? Did you become an actor to further the Muslim struggle?” an officer screamed, twisting my arm to the point of snapping.

It turned out that what those special branch officers did was illegal. I was asked by activist lawyers if I wanted to sue, but instead I wrote an account of the incident and sent it to a few journalists. A story about the illegal detention of the actors from a film about illegal detention turned out to be too good to ignore. I was glad to shed some light on this depressing state of affairs.

Once again Riz demonstrated in this situation the high caliber individual he is, demonstrating the importance of shedding light on the situation over the personal financial gain through suing.

He's a good writer, for sure. My husband always gets pinged at airports because he has dark hair but it's never been as bad as what Riz experienced. LAX was the worst. I totally understand the need for tight security but downright rudeness because of the assumption of what someone's religion might be is ludicrous.

I agree completely, I think we all understand the reason for tightened security, it's definitely important. However, religious based profiling is completely unreasonable.

The guy at LAX was so rude. Wanted to know why my husband was in USA and he said for a business conference. He asked if it was about armaments. WTH? He then asked what I was doing in America with a muslim. I said I'm his wife and I've come to hold his hand and spend lots of money as a tourist; and to protect him from westbro church terrorists because he's an atheist.

Oh my, I've never experienced customs agent like that guy anywhere in the world. And he couldn't even speak english, not that there's anything wrong with that, but to greet people in such a manner was just appalling. LAX has a very well founded bad reputation.