A Virginia man said he has been stuck in limbo in Egypt for the last six weeks, living in a cheap hotel and surviving on fast food after his name was placed on a US no-fly list because of a trip to Yemen.
Yahya Wehelie, a 26-year-old Muslim who was born in Fairfax, Virginia to Somali parents, said Wednesday he spent 18 months studying in Yemen and left in early May. The US has been scrutinising citizens who study in Yemen more closely since the man who tried to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas was linked to an al-Qaida offshoot in Yemen (Which is fair). Wehelie was returning to the US with his brother Yusuf via Egypt on May 5 when Egyptian authorities stopped him from boarding his flight to New York. They told him the FBI wanted to speak with him.
Wehelie said he had no dealings with a terrorist organisation while in Yemen and does not see himself as a particularly observant Muslim (Poor guy had to defend himself but isn't it just sick) . He said he was studying information technology at the Lebanese International University in the capital San'a and only visited a mosque a handful of times. He said he had also studied a little Arabic.
"My home is America and I don't know why I can't go back there," he said, adding that he even suggested to the FBI to "put me ... in an airplane with a bunch of US marshals or whatever, in handcuffs. Just get me back home."
His family said Wehelie was never physically abused but subjected to enormous psychological pressure and denied access to an American lawyer his family hired for him. When he asked the FBI agents how he could return to the U.S., he said one made a reference to how "Columbus sailed the ocean blue," possibly suggesting he take a sea route.
In a news conference Wednesday in Washington by a Muslim civil rights group, his mother Shamsa Noor said she sent her sons to Yemen to learn Arabic and get some direction in their lives and now she feels guilty for that decision. "It is very frustrating. I feel so guilty because I'm the one who sent them there," Noor said.The family said Yemen was a natural choice because education was relatively inexpensive and many Somali natives live there. Wehelie's brother Yusuf also spoke at the news conference. "What happened to me was wrong and I want to make sure it does not happen to any American citizens," he said.
Officials at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which sponsored the news conference, said they are aware of at least two other cases where American citizens who are Muslims are similarly denied return to the United States. CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, said the organization understands the need to question travelers and the need to protect national security. But he said the no-fly list is being used as a weapon to punish American Muslims without providing due process. "We are very concerned that this apparent targeting of American Muslims sends a very wrong message to American Muslims that they are second-class citizens," Awad said.
Yahya Wehelie, a 26-year-old Muslim who was born in Fairfax, Virginia to Somali parents, said Wednesday he spent 18 months studying in Yemen and left in early May. The US has been scrutinising citizens who study in Yemen more closely since the man who tried to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas was linked to an al-Qaida offshoot in Yemen (Which is fair). Wehelie was returning to the US with his brother Yusuf via Egypt on May 5 when Egyptian authorities stopped him from boarding his flight to New York. They told him the FBI wanted to speak with him.
Wehelie said he had no dealings with a terrorist organisation while in Yemen and does not see himself as a particularly observant Muslim (Poor guy had to defend himself but isn't it just sick) . He said he was studying information technology at the Lebanese International University in the capital San'a and only visited a mosque a handful of times. He said he had also studied a little Arabic.
"My home is America and I don't know why I can't go back there," he said, adding that he even suggested to the FBI to "put me ... in an airplane with a bunch of US marshals or whatever, in handcuffs. Just get me back home."
His family said Wehelie was never physically abused but subjected to enormous psychological pressure and denied access to an American lawyer his family hired for him. When he asked the FBI agents how he could return to the U.S., he said one made a reference to how "Columbus sailed the ocean blue," possibly suggesting he take a sea route.
In a news conference Wednesday in Washington by a Muslim civil rights group, his mother Shamsa Noor said she sent her sons to Yemen to learn Arabic and get some direction in their lives and now she feels guilty for that decision. "It is very frustrating. I feel so guilty because I'm the one who sent them there," Noor said.The family said Yemen was a natural choice because education was relatively inexpensive and many Somali natives live there. Wehelie's brother Yusuf also spoke at the news conference. "What happened to me was wrong and I want to make sure it does not happen to any American citizens," he said.
Officials at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which sponsored the news conference, said they are aware of at least two other cases where American citizens who are Muslims are similarly denied return to the United States. CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, said the organization understands the need to question travelers and the need to protect national security. But he said the no-fly list is being used as a weapon to punish American Muslims without providing due process. "We are very concerned that this apparent targeting of American Muslims sends a very wrong message to American Muslims that they are second-class citizens," Awad said.
