The mayor of the Ohio city of Avon, not far from Cleveland, has issued a formal apology after Emirati businessman Ahmed al-Menhali was falsely arrested by the city’s police as a “terrorist.”
Profiling of a man from the United Arab Emirates isn’t so unusual in 2016 America, but what happened was, with police bursting into the hotel he was staying at, guns drawn, one of them wielding an assault rifle, and screaming at him. Menhali, who was in the US for medical treatment, had a stroke during the ordeal, and ended up hospitalized for three days.
Menhali had been staying in an apartment since April, there for treatment while on a tourist visa, but was told he’d have to leave the week of the upcoming Republican National Convention, so he went to the Avon hotel in search of someplace to stay in the meantime.
The hotel clerk got the manager, who was supposedly going to give him a list of possible hotels to stay at, but instead they called 911, claiming he was in their lobby “pledging allegiance to ISIS.”
Menhali says what happened to him reflect the “mobilization of American society against Muslims,” adding that he was a victim of “state terrorism.”
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