Shoshana Hebshi Strip-Searched After Sitting Next to Suspicious Men on Plane

Shoshana Hebshi

Shoshana Hebshi, a half-Jewish and half-Arabic woman, was strip-searched after sitting next to two Indian men who were accused of acting suspicious on a Frontier Airlines flight from Denver to Detroit on September 11, 2011. The flight crew reported the two men for spending too much time in the bathroom.

Upon landing at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the plane was isolated and stormed by heavily armed police. The police handcuffed Hebshi and the two suspicious men and removed them from the plane. Hebshi was patted down and placed in the back of a police car. She was then taken to a holding cell and forced to remove her clothes for a strip-search.

Guess what they found on Hebshi. They found nothing. Shoshana Hebshi is not a terrorist. She is a mom who just happened to look a little too Middle-Eastern and just happened to sit next to some Indian men who went to the bathroom too often for some people to accept. By the way, the Indian men did not even know each other, and they were never in the bathroom together. One of the men was sick, and the other man probably had some other good reason to visit the bathroom. They were not terrorists either. There were no weapons. There were no bombs. There was no plot. There was nothing. All three people were innocent.

What happened here is three perfectly innocent people were bullied and harassed for looking a little too ethnic. It is ridiculous that Indian people are not allowed to visit the bathroom more than an average number of times without setting off some national security emergency. It is even more ridiculous a woman was singled out just because she was sitting in the wrong seat near such Indian men.

Shoshana Hebshi was robbed of her dignity for absolutely no good reason, and she--along with the Indian men--need to sue Frontier Airlines, the Detroit Metropolitan Airport Police, the FBI, and ever other bungling institution that was involved in this incredibly humiliating overreaction.

You can read the whole story on Shoshana Hebshi's blog.

Children Strip-Searched at Ohio Summer Camp

Ibrahim Y. Haroon is upset because his child was strip-searched on July 19, 2011 as part of a group of around sixty-five children attending summer camp at the Robert K. Fox Family Y in Lancaster, Ohio.

Some feces was found in the pool. The staff asked for kids to confess to defecating in the pool, but no child would confess. If the staff had any sort of wisdom, they would have just suspended pool privileges, but that solution did not seem to be oppressive and sexy enough for them.

The staff took all of the swimmers into the locker rooms, two-by-two, had them face the wall, and had them pull down their bathing suits or bathing suit bottoms. The staff members then inspected the bathing suits.

Just because one person may have pooped in the pool, why does that mean dozens of innocent children have to be humiliated? Also, since when did it become okay for an adult to demand a child disrobe? This strip-search of children is not only a gross violation of basic civil liberties, it is a sex crime. Adults cannot force children to undress. A teacher does not have the right to take children into a classroom and make them undress. The ranger at the park does not have the right to take children behind the bushes and make them undress. What the staff at the Robert K. Fox Family Y did is no different. Every staff member who participated in this strip-search needs to be fired, arrested for lewd and lascivious conduct, and never be allowed to work with children again.