JOHANNESBURG, 12 January 2004 — Two South African Muslims heading for an Islamic convention in Atlanta, Georgia were refused entry to the United States despite having visas and were then detained and deported in conditions they described as humiliating, the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times reported.
It said that after a 17-hour flight from Johannesburg to attend a convention hosted by the Atlanta Islamic Institute, businessman Moosa Suleman and scholar Moulana Ahmed Suleman Khatani were detained by immigration officials, fingerprinted and photographed.
“Their passports, credit cards, invitations to the conference and other documentation were photocopied,” the newspaper said yesterday.
Suleman, who is 66 and has a full white beard, told the Sunday Times he was sent back home after enduring “five hours of hell, uncertainty and embarrassment.”
Khatani, 33, was detained and spent more than 34 hours in a police cell with four criminals before being deported, the newspaper said.
Sulemen said armed guards escorted them when they needed to go to the toilet.
Suleman, who lives in the east coast city of Durban, said he was questioned about trips he had made to Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
“My documentation was all in order,” he said. “It was quite clear that I was discriminated against because of my beard and appearance.” The two were among the first foreign visitors subjected to a new security check known as US-VISIT — US Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology.
The acting US consul in Durban, Liam Humphrey, told the Sunday Times that visas issued abroad could be “overridden by the immigration service, which is incorporated into (the department of) homeland security.”
