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\nRyanair said it has a strict zero tolerance policy towards passenger misconduct (Stock image)<\/p>\n
An Irish Imam has called for tougher hate speech laws after he was verbally attacked on a Ryanair flight when a man shouted in his face.<\/p>\n
Chief Imam of the Islamic Centre of Ireland Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri said the attack occurred as passengers were boarding a flight from Poland to Dublin.<\/p>\n
“I was in the plane, just one of the first passengers to settle in the seats. As I was sitting in my seat, somebody just pushed me on my shoulder and started shouting at me.<\/p>\n
He said: “You’re a paedophile. Your prophet is a paedophile. I was completely shocked because nothing like that has ever happened to me in a plane. It was completely out of nowhere. It was a shock.<\/p>\n
“I felt hurt. I felt angry. I felt hurt and heartbroken. There is no justification for abusing somebody. I just felt that it was so sad and it was so heartbreaking for this to happen.”<\/p>\n
Speaking to RT\u00c9’s Morning Ireland, Dr Al-Qadri said he stood up, confronted the man and began recording video to document what was happening, while a Ryanair flight attendant who witnessed the incident spoke to the plane\u2019s captain.<\/p>\n
“I spoke to the captain and I said I want to report this because this is not acceptable,” he added.<\/p>\n
The Imam said what happened was “out of nowhere, imagine if this was a Muslim woman with a hijab”.<\/p>\n
“What he said was completely untrue. As a Muslim, the majority of Muslims don’t believe anything like that,” he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Al-Qadri said when the plane landed in Dublin garda\u00ed boarded the plane, while passengers, except for him and the man, got off.<\/p>\n
“When everybody else was leaving, many people came and they said to me: “well done, for reporting.”<\/p>\n
Dr Al-Qadri said the garda\u00ed spoke to both himself and the man, who apologised.<\/p>\n
\nRyanair said it has a strict zero tolerance policy towards passenger misconduct (Stock image)<\/p>\n
He told the man he “accepted his apology” and told him “please don’t ever do this again”.<\/p>\n
He advised him to “go and meet people, Muslims and others” and that “we do not believe what you said. We\u2019re not what you assume us to be. We’re just human beings like yourselves and you have to understand that we all are the same. We are all the human family”.<\/p>\n
Dr Al-Qadri said the man, who is from Poland and has lived in Ireland for 20 years, told him he had seen him online and knew he was Muslim.<\/p>\n
The Imam reminded the man that after 20 years in Ireland, he should know it is not okay to discriminate against people or abuse them because of their beliefs.<\/p>\n
Asked why he chose not to press charges and make a statement to garda\u00ed, Dr Al-Qadri said he wanted the man to learn and not suffer.<\/p>\n
He said if he pressed charges the man could be banned from flying and become even more angry and hateful.<\/p>\n
“I think pursuing this through the courts would have done more damage and perhaps have increased the hatred and animosity that this person has. I don\u2019t think it was worth it,” he said.<\/p>\n
An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na confirmed that “officers boarded the plane after it landed in Dublin”, but said no investigation is under way as no formal complaint has been made.<\/p>\n
Ryanair said in a statement that crew on the “flight called ahead for police assistance after an individual passenger became disruptive. Police met the aircraft upon arrival at Dublin and removed this disruptive passenger”.<\/p>\n
“Ryanair has a strict zero tolerance policy towards passenger misconduct and will continue to take decisive action to combat unruly passenger behaviour, ensuring that all passengers and crew travel in a respectful and stress-free environment, without unnecessary disruption,” it added.<\/p>\n
All airlines can impose passenger travel bans. Ryanair travel bans can range from one year up to ten years.<\/p>\n
Dr Al-Qadri said the experience left him “hurt and heartbroken”.<\/p>\n
The Imam also described a separate incident where he was knocked unconscious in a separate assault last year as a hate crime and was also subjected to online abuse when he ran as a candidate in General Election 2024.<\/p>\n
Dr Al-Qadri said with hate against immigrants and Muslims becoming more common he lives daily concerned about his safety.<\/p>\n
“Ireland isn\u2019t more racist,” he said, but young people, “especially from vulnerable backgrounds” and “disenfranchised communities” are more vulnerable to radicalisation and rhetoric from far-right extremists. That\u2019s what\u2019s worrying,” he said.<\/p>\n
Dr Al-Qadri added he himself is “more vigilant” when it “comes to day-to-day business”.<\/p>\n
He said the Government needs to revisit hate speech legislation.<\/p>\n
“I call for the Government to have some kind of hate speech legislation,” Dr Al-Qadri said.<\/p>\n
“We definitely need to have legislation that is very clear that, when it comes to hate, especially hate crimes that are violent, it’s not acceptable and that in Ireland nobody will tolerate this,” the Imam added.<\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s new Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024 came into force on 31 December 2024.<\/p>\n
It brought tougher penalties for crimes motivated by hatred towards someone\u2019s race, religion, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation.<\/p>\n
The new law does provide for harsher prison sentences where hatred is shown to be an aggravating factor in the committing of an offence.<\/p>\n
The Government dropped planned hate speech measures from the Bill, so the 1989 incitement law still covers hate speech offences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Irish Imam has called for tougher hate speech laws after he was verbally attacked on a Ryanair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-140255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115422883201771287","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}