[syndicate] the state of fascism today (example)

[Frederic Madre]

yesterday:

In addition, some passengers unfastened their seatbelts while the light
requiring they be fastened was still illuminated, the official said.

That was enough for U.S. air marshals aboard the DC-10 to break their cover.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/23/schiphol/index.html

today:

Ten Bohra Muslims, out of the 12 held by Dutch security men, have Mumbai
addresses, one of them is from Bahraich district in UP, while another is an
Indian, with a Bahrain address.

The oldest among them is 49, while the youngest is 24. The Northwest flight
from Minneapolis to Mumbai with 149 passengers was escorted back to Schiphol
by two F-16 fighters on Wednesday.

As soon as the flight landed at Schiphol, the men were handcuffed and taken
into custody by airport police. According to a US official, the plane turned
back after crew members and air marshals saw the passengers trying to use
mobiles and were passing the phones among themselves while the airliner was
taking off.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the
subject. "It was behaviour that average passengers wouldn't do," the
official said.

Northwest's Dean Breest told TOI that though the airline had debriefed the
pilot and the crew, it could not release any detail as it was now a police
case.

On Thursday, a spokesman for the local prosecutor also refused to go into
the details. They "got something" that was not allowed on board the flight
and this matter was "important enough to be investigated", the spokesman
said.

Meanwhile, as tense family members of the arrested men waited for some news
about them in Mumbai, Sharma said in New Delhi that the Indian mission in
Amsterdam has given consular access to them, though he was not sure whether
or not they all held Indian passports.

Thursday was a day of confusion with Dutch authorities talking about the
case with great caution. The confusion was confounded with different
passengers giving different versions of what actually happened aboard
NW0042.

Some passengers described the men as speaking Urdu, some with beards, and
some in salwar-kameez , according to a report.

The Algemeen Dagblad newspaper quoted a 31-year-old Dutch businessman as
saying the suspects were walking up and down the isle after takeoff. "I saw
the air marshals walking, and then you know something's wrong," it quoted
him as saying.

Nitin Patel of Boston, who sat behind the men, told the paper, "I don't know
how close we were, but my gut tells me these people wanted to hijack the
airplane." De Telegraaf quoted passenger Sarat Menon as quoting the men as
saying they were returning from a vacation in Tobago.

"It wasn't immediately clear what was going on. There was no panic. A flight
attendant told us to remain seated and to follow the air marshals' orders,"
Menon said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1924298.cms

Later today:
Related Stories
Air scare: All 12 detained Indians freed

forget it,
f.