Man Barred From Plane For Wearing Anti Bush Shirt

From ClickToNews

Jasson Wearing Anti Bush Shirt

1 Abstract
2 Details
3 Opinion
4 Source

[edit] Abstract

An australian man was denied access by Quantas to board his flight in Melborne becaues he was wearing a t-shirt that had an image of George Bush along with a caption that said 'World's Number One Terrorist'.

[edit] Details

Allen Jasson was travelling from UK to Australia. In the UK airport he was asked by security to buy a different t-shirt from the gift shop or risk missing his flight. That time he caved in to their requests so as to board his flight to Australia. It was upon returned to the Australian airport for his return flight - again wearing the anti-bush t-shirt - that he was once again refused.

Jasson was denied access to board his flight by the Australian airline Quantas because, according to Quantas, his anit-Bush t-shirt had 'the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft...'. The man, annoyed by the refusal of the airline to let him board refused to change shirts and claimed he would rather miss the flight and stand up for free speach.

It is unknown at this time what sort of security risk the t-shirt made to the safety of the quantas aircraft - officials from the airline would not comment further.

Australia has been one of the biggest backers and contributors of the US led invasion of Iraq. It is commonly believed that Australia felt it necessary to join the war in Iraq as they could not let diplomatic relations with their biggest military allie suffer. Now, as the war in Iraq continues to spiral out of control and more and more innocents are killed, the war has lost most of the public support it enjoyed in the early days of the invasion.

[edit] Opinion

We all know security has been tightened at all airports since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. However, critics of the many new intrusive powers granted to organizations in the name of increased security point out that the possibility for abuse of power grows exponentially with the growth of power. While holding back passengers with bombs, strange electrical devices, and other potentially dangerous materials is obviously in the public's best interest - holding back a man because he is wearing a t-shirt with a political message that a corporation (Quantas) does not agree with - I think we can all agree that that is just plain wrong.