NEWS BRIEF A 27-year-old British-Muslim’s honeymoon ended in detention when officials at Doncaster Airport questioned her for suspicious reading material, the Independent reports. Her reading: an anthology of Syrian short stories, poems, and essays.
Faizah Shaheen, a National Health Services worker from Leeds who focuses on deterring young mental-health patients from radicalization, was returning home July 25 from her honeymoon in Marmaris, Turkey, when she was stopped by South Yorkshire Police. They questioned her for 15 minutes in connection with a book she’d been reading two weeks earlier on her flight to Turkey. A Thomson Airways worker reportedly alerted officials about the book, Malu Halasa’s Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline.
Shaheen said she intends to file formal complaints against Thomson Airways and the police, calling the experience “very hurtful.” She told the Independent:
I asked what was going on and they said I had been reported due to a book I was reading and was to be questioned under the Terrorism Act. I became very angry and upset. … I do question if whether it would be different if it was someone who wasn’t Muslim.
Under Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, British police in a port or border area are lawfully permitted to stop, question, and detain individuals without cause if they are suspected of involvement in criminal activity, including terrorism.