‘Blow Away’ Text Lands Muslim in Canada Jail
MONTREAL — A Muslim businessman in Canada became a terror suspect for telling his sales staff in a text message to “blow away” the competition at a New York City trade show, a religious association said Friday.
Moroccan-born Saad Allami, who works as a telecommunications company sales manager, was arrested three days after he sent the message in January 2011 and detained while police searched his home, said the Muslim Council of Montreal.
“The whole time, the officers kept repeating to the plaintiff’s wife that her husband was a terrorist,” said court filings in a lawsuit filed by Allami, cited by local media. Allami was released after four hours of questioning.
Some of his colleagues reportedly claimed they were also held for hours at the Canada-US border on account of the accusations made against their boss.
“Mr Allami’s statements, when considered in the context of which they were given, were nothing to draw such alarm or suspicion,” said Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal.
“It is clear that his arrest was the result of racial profiling and a knee-jerk reaction to label him as a terror suspect simply due to his religious background.”
Allami is seeking Can$100,000 ($100,603) from Quebec’s provincial police, a police sergeant and the justice department for unlawful detention, unlawful arrest, loss of income and damage to his reputation.
The Quebec Superior Court is to hear the case on March 5.
February 7th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Paranoid much?? Who hasen’t used an expression that sounds violent at one point or another-pathetic it had come to this
February 7th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
It’s mind blowing! Oops
February 7th, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Awesome! I hope he wins a ton of money Inshallah. That’s one thing these morons understand. The green. These idiotic cops will think twice before persecuting innocent Muslims if their department loses hundreds of thousands of dollars over this incident. So much for free speech. We can’t even say certain common phrases because of religious profiling. Gimme a break. This is really shoddy police work btw. The cops involved are like cartoon characters or something. I mean you seriously can’t tell this was just a sales manager trying to give his staff a quick pep talk (text)?
February 7th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
Unfortunately, this sounds like a real live version of a humorous video clip Loonwatch posted some time back. I think it was produced by Amnesty International, showing a muslim man (or couple) going into a travel agency to plan a vacation trip. The travel agency was actually a Federal front to entrap muslim “terrorists”. So when the muslim man wound up saying “that’ll be a blast!”, Federal agents rushed in to arrest him.
It seems that some police agents are such idiots that they get all paranoid at common metaphorical speech: “that was a blast!” or “blow the competition away!” Have we lost all common sense?
February 7th, 2012 at 2:46 pm
In 2010 a Muslim woman was fined in Quebec for not sitting on a bench properly. Unfortunately like most stories involving the mistreatment of Muslims, there was little news coverage.
February 7th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
Hopefully this man will win the case…
February 7th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
With help from CAIR and a good Jewish lawyer, he’s certain to win.
February 7th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
Yes, yes who would have thought Blow Away actually means Blow Away
February 7th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
I wonder how Sun News will spin this
February 7th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Life imitating Art. The very first episode of Little Mosque On the Prairie, featured the new Imam of the local Mosque being questioned because his future employer’s answering machine said something about “blowing the competition away.” Wow….
February 7th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Yes, yes who would have thought Blow Away actually means Blow Away”
Loons really can’t do sarcasm well. go away troll! shoo…
February 7th, 2012 at 5:41 pm
Tilting at Windmills!
Beware the Western Muzlamic Dragons…
February 7th, 2012 at 6:37 pm
@khushboo Don’t be so hard on John I thought Allami was going to take a big fan, put it in front of their rivals, and launch into the air too.
February 7th, 2012 at 7:25 pm
I’m surprised no one mentioned the even more insidious angle here: Why was his text message intercepted? This is clear evidence that ALL of our communications are monitored by BIG BROTHER or whatever you want to call it.
Hello police state. Phase 1 of the banking cabals sinister plot is such a smashing success.
February 8th, 2012 at 5:41 am
This “episode” of the Islamophobia-mania, would have been golden opportunity for ridicule, if Muslims had had a show similar to that of “The Daily-Show” or “Colbert-Report”, exclusively to make FUN of the-phobes-of-Islam/Muslims. There’s no shortage in the Islamophobia-mania industry, of golden opportunities for us to ridicule and fun with it. So come on, CREATE such show already, guarantee it will be tones of fun for the hate-allergic, non-Muslims as well.