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TechnoratiNobel Prize Winner Gets Hassled At Bush Intercontinental Airport
HOUSTON, Texas - Mairead Corrigan Maguire thought the hard part was over. Along with fellow Nobel Laureates Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala, American landmine activist Jody Williams, and Iranian Shirin Ebadi, she had been in Guatemala, where the women had just co-hosted a three-day conference on democracy, human rights and peace that had attracted 150 female international activists.
She was probably tired and ready to get back to Belfast, where her attempts to bring about an end to The Troubles in 1976 made her at 32 the youngest Nobel Peace Prize-winner ever. Since then, she's been given the Pacem in Terris Award by Pope John Paul II, and the United Nations selected her (along with the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Jordan's Queen Noor and a dozen or so other fellow Nobel Laureates) as an honorary board member of the International Coalition for the Decade.
Unfortunately for Maguire, her flight back home to Northern Ireland was routed through Houston, where none of that meant diddly. Federal Customs officials were far less interested in any of that than they were in a box on the back of the transit form she filled out on her flight.
"They questioned me about my nonviolent protests in USA against the Afghanistan invasion and Iraqi war," Maguire said later in a statement. "They insisted I must tick the box in the Immigration form admitting to criminal activities."
Maguire was detained for two hours -- grilled once, fingerprinted, photographed, and grilled again. She missed her flight home. She was only released after an organization she helped found -- the Nobel Women's Initiative -- started kicking up a fuss.
Customs spokesperson Paula Rivera confirmed the incident to Hair Balls: "When international passengers are asking for access to the United States, we rely on them to accurately complete their forms for us. If those entry forms are not completed accurately it would be a reason to have a person referred for a secondary examination."
Because of privacy issues, Rivera wouldn't tell us what it was that Maguire failed to disclose, but reading between both the official lines and Maguire's statement, it's safe to say that Maguire failed to admit to having been arrested in the United States. In May 2008, Maguire and 60 others were arrested for crossing a police line at a non-violent prayer protest outside of the White House.
Maguire eventually admitted she was arrested, apparently, but remains defiant that she committed no crime.
"I am not a criminal, my nonviolent acts in USA opposing the war on Afghanistan, and Iraq, are acts of conscience and together with millions of USA citizens, and world citizens, I refuse to be criminalized for opposing such illegal policies," her statement read. "Every citizen has a right, indeed a moral obligation, to nonviolent civil disobedience in the face of illegal and unjust laws, especially war. If anyone is to be criminalized for these illegal and immoral policies it is the USA Government, who must be held accountable before the International community for these acts of crime against humanity."
She added that she was disappointed that this happened in "Obama's America." But then again, she was at Bush Airport, so maybe she should have expected this shabby treatment.
And hell, at least we didn't tear-gas her and clip her with a rubber bullet like the Israelis did two years ago.
50 Comments so far
Show Alltheir going to rename this airport the bevis and butthead international as a token of
appreciation for our esteemed former president and vice president. i'm sure you can
guess their names.
"she was disappointed that this happened in Obama's America"
When a guy owns an entire hemisphere he can't see to every minute detail. Give Saint O'Bamba a break!
Notice she used the airport because the Texans convinced the Mexicans not to build passenger rail. There's NOTHING through Mexico.
Woman's lucky she's not in Gitmo. Protesting war--a serious offense in the Corporate States of America.
The only worse than an unpopular dictator is a popular dictator.
"Obama's America."
Meet the new Boss
Same as the old Boss
A Police State is A police State is A Police State.
When will we find the gumption to change that?
yes to most of the comments...
amazing how cheney croaks along in the media,
criticizing obama, when obama does nothing but
protect him
I work a few blocks from the White House. Back in 2003 I often went there over my lunch break to witness the ongoing protests against the BushCo illegal War and lend my support to those putting themselves on the line. One relatively quiet day I sat down on the Pennsylvania Avenue curb, and eventually struck up a conversation with a woman nearby. Turns out it was Mairead Corrigan Maguire. She had a letter in her hand, and had been waiting several days to deliver her letter to Dubya. A Nobel Peace Laureate refused entrance to the White House!
That about sums up Bush the Lesser. What a disappointment he was. And a war criminal to boot.
Astonishing that she thought that Obama's America would be different from Bush's America. Same old same old.
I spent thirty-three years and four months in actve service as a member of our most agile military force-the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lietenant to major general. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Sreet, and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism....Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American Oil interests in 1914. I heped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank to collect revenues in....I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903.
General Smedley D. Butler
i fell asleep under a tree. woke up 20 years later.WTF happened. rip van winkle
There is a real economic opportunity for some airline to offer flights that never go through the paranoia hell know now as the USA. I'd pay extra to never have to go anywhere near a US transit point.
Check out the Playmobile Airport Security System:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B0002CYTL2/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoin...
Peace is always a threat to a fascist state. Get used to it.
The US is a fascist state just like Israel who owns us.
Another reason which reinforces my plan NEVER to visit the US
Must be nice. Living in America, I don't have that luxury obviously.
Somehow, in some way, America will probably survive without you.
Another rightwing love it or leave it asshole posting here.
Safety first, Max. The US remains and shall continue in full Bestial mode. Be thankful they didn't cook her and eat her. Close observers have noted that collectively, after we have beaten our chosen victims into bloody pulp, we are very messy eaters. Safety first. Of course, from here it only gets worse...this is fulfillment for a people who successfully completed bloody genocide and built our first fortunes from (racialized) slave labor. That was as the "Founding Rapists" intended when they mirrored this disgusting abattoir on the Roman Slave Republic before the Gracchi Bros...just one big slave plantation where feral patrician clans rule with total impunity...for a reference on our preferred social organization you might do a quick historical review of Angola Plantation that is used to this day as a Slave Prison. You will find this a succinct explication of our core social values...bon apetit..
The Bush/Cheney Right wing Religious Zombies have empowered themselves as righteous American soldiers.They have created a network of spys and gang stalkers across the nation that are dangerous.They think there job is to harass people who oppose their twisted ideals by protecting Americas war criminal and torture mentality that has permeated a small percentage of radical right wing lunatics.
The words "criminal" and " violent acts" in the same sentence should be used for greedy bankers and lieing political leaders that start wars they know can not end.
Anyway , this small percentage of right wing whack jobs have been given some pretty good private contracts and jobs by the Bush/Cheney good old boy Regime.
They are going to be with us for as long as it takes the Democrats to weed them out and replace them with left wing cronies.
Its in the works, the Republicans have had the White House 30 of the last 40 years. All we need to do is keep them out for the next 30 years and we can put the country back in order.
With liberty and justice for all.
Because apparently , the Republican party are fascist capitalists that would have big corporations rule the world, and would have you believe that the Democrats are left wing money grabbing socialists that want to take money from the greedy rich and give to the poor.
Ill take a socialist over a fascists any day of the week.
Airports in the US are a microcosm of some of the worst qualities in our country. They are white, sterile and charmless, except for the shining chain stores selling overpriced goods. Hostile and poorly trained customer service and frequent misinformation hide behind the guise of national security. Like Cesar's dogs, we are required to be calm-submissive as we stand on long lines and remove any items of clothing required by guards. People are chosen for special scrutiny based on mean spirited criteria and / or inaccurate records.
Joe
If these kind of egregious activities continue it will be time for the international airline association to boycott the US. No flights into or out of the US, none, until America allows free passage to interconnecting flights without this kind of garbage. Forcing airlines to detour around the US because they have a passenger on board that the US doesn't like is another should be met in kind. Canada should tell the US that if they are flying to Europe or China or the Orient they can darn well fly the long way around, over the Pacific or Atlantic and foreget the polar route. The US gets away with murder, literally and never is forced to endure the same terms they require of others. It's long past time for that to change.
I am in full agreement. It rather easy for Canadian flights to bypass US airspace. It much harder for US flights to do the same.
Vancouver-Toronto flights go through US airspace all the time, it requires less fuel. That's why the US wanted to approve passengers on these domestic flights, until we put up a stink about it.
Homeland Security could spend the money modifying airports to segregate "in transit" international passengers so that they would never "seek to enter the US". Of course that would deny the goons their jollies.
----------------------------------
ma'm, did you check the box ?
- what?
ahh.. did you check the box ma'm ?
"I am not a criminal, my nonviolent acts in USA opposing the war on Afghanistan, and Iraq, are acts of conscience and together with millions of USA citizens, and world citizens, I refuse to be criminalized for opposing such illegal policies,"
look, i'm not here to give you a hard time ms. maguire, protocol is protocol. okay?
- i'm a recipient of the nobel peace prize, just connecting a flight from a to b....to go home.
ma'm step away from the line please.....
hey sondra we're gonna need a hand here...
------------------------------------
are we there yet ?
...peace...
yes, 'freedom flight' has landed, the fascists, perverts and monsters are firmly in control.
all hail USA!
we are 'there'.
freedom flight has landed.
Our immigration officials need a swift and painful lesson in correct behavior, and they need it now. Shame on us, shame on Texas and shame on Immigration. What perfect fools.
Memo to the morons:
"Bush airport" is named after daddy Bush. As if the name of the airport makes a difference.
Memo to the moron:
It is the penultimate degradation to Houston Intercontinental Airport to have been renamed for the disgusting, criminal, pedophile "bush" just as it is sheer lunacy that the Washington National Airport has been tarred with the fecal name of "raygun".
Aside from that though, do you even know what "irony" means?
For my part, I always call the Houston airport, "Houston Intercontinental". I refuse to call it the "George H W Bush" airport. Same goes for Washington, whereas I refer to it as "Washington National" instead of a B-movie actor namesake.
I've lived in the DC area for 30 years - anyone who is a "native" or long term resident still calls the DC airport "National" - in fact, one of the easy ways to spot a non-local is when they ask for directions to "Reagan." The conversation usually goes like this:
"Can you give me directions to Reagan?"
Momentary blank stare - then - "Excuse me?"
"Can you give me directions to Reagan Airport?"
"Oh, you mean National Airport. Okay. Nobody calls it Reagan..."
Wonder which airport they'll name after Clinton.
Even though it's name for a world class criminal I found my transit through IAH to be quite pleasant.
"irony"
isn't that women's work?
As an American, I must say that there is no choice here but the waterboard. We must get at the 'truth'.
Customs spokeperson Paula Rivera is sick on power and sickens with lies, as she is just one more typical goon who sucks up to tyrrany and defends it without a trace of mentality or ethics.
She has the job she has because she will swallow anything from the fascist thugs in power, and blame the innocent for the torment, if not torture, she thrills to see inflicted.
Were she as spokesperson for police it would be to defend a pack of police who had shot to death an unarmed, unthreatening, groom-to-be more than fifty times, or had raped a suspect with their nightsticks.
Had she been in Germany during the Holocaust, she would be blaming Jews and Gypsys, intellectuals and spiritual leaders who oppose evil and speak for humanity, as she oversaw their transportation to the deathcamps.
Who says things aren't improving since Obama became president. They didn't rendition her to some undisclosed location in a third world country's prison.
Seriously, we have a lot to undue from the last eight years (actually the last thirty), and if we think that we are going to get "change" due to our elected reps taking the initiative on their own, Obama included, without making a big fuss and keeping the street heat on, we are deluded. Now is not the time to demobilize and give room, now is the time to mobilize more.
I met Mairead the first time in Occupied east Jerusalem, during Sabeel's [Arabic for The Way] 7th International Conference: THE NAKBA: MEMORY, REALITY AND BEYOND.
She said:
"Before peace can flourish, its roots of freedom, equality, justice, must be nourished with courage and truth. It takes courage to speak truth to power when the consequences are often suffering...there have always been people in history, willing to tell the truth at great personal cost to themselves, and it is to such people we, the human family, remain indebted....We are indebted especially to all those who continue to tell the truth of...
The rest:
May 27, 2009: http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate VS Homeland Security
Eileen Fleming, Author, Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
My condolences. Try crossing any Mexico-U.S. border mid-summer temperature at 102-110 Fahrenheit, cars backed up easily 1/2 to 1 mile, street-hawkers running between cars selling food, drinks, tabloids, and curios, everyone breathing the CO poison of hundreds of idling cars.
While the rest of the country "sleeps soundly" border- crossers pay dearly and daily...
Welcome to the land of the perpetual 23 hours day. One hour of one's limited lifetime wasted waiting in line.
Is it any wonder no one wants to come in and trade with/shop in the U.S.?
You obviously do not have a SENTRI pass. Or a motorcycle. As to me, I enjoy my 5 minute, max, waits.
Have you seen the requirements to get a SENTRI pass? Not to mention the price. Not everyone can afford/qualify for one. Here in my town it's more like an hour and a half of wait time. My local border town's economy is dead thanks to how we treat people coming from across the border. Some argue that the waiting times are because border agents have to inspect thoroughly and make sure nothing suspicious is coming across, but very often I come to the inspection point and the agent that is supposed to be very interested in inspecting my car is chit chatting with the agent at the next booth. But if you point that out... secondary revision!
The SENTRI pass costs $155, and is good for five years. These days, the requirements to get one are minimal; they are handing them out like candy, which is one of the reasons why, in San Ysidro, at least, that I use my motorcycle any morning I am crossing after 7AM; the SENTRI lines are now long too.
Despite what they say, SENTRI is really no longer a trusted traveller system. It is just a means for quicker identification. If you have the $155 and have not been caught for any felonies, you can get one.
Or, get a motorcycle.
.
The NeoCons, during the 8 years of the Cheney-Bush Administration, have firmly entrenched a Fascist Police State.
Homeland America has become an oppressor of civil rights, and is rapidly strangling Democracy.
These enemies of Our Freedoms are afraid of truth and light.
They are closing our borders, and controlling our media.
These Right-Wingers are afraid of all Social Commentators and Activitists. They would round up George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Old Doctor Franklin.......as enemies of the State.
.
Lucky she wasn't tasered.
Or raped.
Also on the upswing in popularity.
One of my former colleagues, a Belgian woman, was detained and hassled upon entering the US to attend an academic conference last year. She is a respected professor and has never been arrested and has never received a traffic ticket. She said that because of this experience she will not visit the US in the future. I don't blame her. If this were not my country, where my family and friends live, I would not return either.
Wow. Pretty thin-skinned, don't you think? I've been delayed in other countries. Generally I've chalked it up to inefficient, F'D up socialist countries' misguided efforts to fulfill the needs of their heavily unionized, inefficient states. It never occurred to me to boycott that country.
Maybe your asshole Belgian douchebag colleague should not come back. And maybe you should join her, asswipe. Fuck off.
"She was only released after an organization she helped found -- the Nobel Women's Initiative -- started kicking up a fuss."
Yeah, right. That NWI musta had Homeland Security quaking in their jackboots.
Those yahoos in the Abu Ghraib photos? A lot of them are wearing customs agents uniforms now. I try to avoid any flights that connect in the USA.
And she wasn't sent to Syria to be tortured.
Nobody was sent to Syria to be tortured, my good friend. Remember that we do not really deal with Syria; we see them as enemy; and we often group them with Iran.
Here's what happened: We could not have said that we tortured people in European capitals, where good white people live. We decided to say the Syrians did it, hitting two birds. 1) We and the Europeans don't torture, 2) The Syrians do torture.
Gradually, we will build momentum to bomb Damascus for supporting Hezbollah, which has thus far prevented my extended family which moved to Israel two decades ago from settling Lebanon like they did Palestine.
Is Suu Kyi next?