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Ex-Pop Star Cat Stevens Deported from U.S.
1 hour, 59 minutes ago
By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former pop singer Cat Stevens, a Muslim, was deported to Britain on Wednesday after U.S. officials said his activities could be "linked to terrorism" and his name was put on a U.S. no-fly list.
Arab-Americans and Muslims in Britain voiced outrage over the treatment of Stevens, who changed his name to Yusuf Islam when he shelved his singing and songwriting career and became a Muslim almost three decades ago.
He was seen being escorted by U.S. security officials onto a United Airlines flight at Dulles International Airport bound for London's Heathrow Airport on Wednesday evening.
Homeland Security spokesman Brian Doyle said Islam's Washington D.C.-bound plane was diverted on Tuesday to Bangor, Maine, after his name turned up on U.S. lists of suspected terrorists. He was questioned by officials and then taken to Boston to catch a connecting flight in Washington for London.
"Why is he on the watch lists? Because of his activities that could be potentially linked to terrorism. The intelligence community has come into possession of additional information that further raises our concern," Doyle said.
A law enforcement official who asked not to be identified said the United States had information that Islam, who visited the United States in May, had donated money to the militant Islamic group Hamas.
Islam was denied entry to Israel in 2000 after the authorities there accused him of supporting Hamas. The former pop star denied the charges and said his charitable donations were for humanitarian causes.
Among the charities he has supported are children affected by the wars in Bosnia and in Iraq (news - web sites) as well as victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against America, which he condemned.
A Homeland Security official said United Airlines employees missed Islam's name on the "watch lists" in Britain and that the plane was in flight when officials found a match from the advanced passenger information sent by the airline.
United Airlines spokesman Jeff Green said airline staff in London had cross-checked all the information on Islam and found nothing to stop him getting on the U.S.-bound flight.
"All I can say is that we followed all of our procedures and we came up with nothing. To suggest that the blame lies on a United employee is incorrect and unfair," said Green.
A leading Arab-American group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), sent letters to President Bush (news - web sites) and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge asking them to explain why Islam was barred from entering the United States.
"Yusuf Islam is perhaps one of the most widely known and respected personalities in the Muslim world. He has a long history of promoting peace and reconciliation and condemning terrorism," said Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR.
Islam was the second high-profile Muslim in recent months to be barred entry to the United States. Swiss-based Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan was prevented from taking up a lecturing post at Notre Dame University in Indiana in August after the U.S. authorities revoked his visa with no explanation.
CAIR said treating mainstream and moderate Muslims as terrorists sent the wrong message. "This does not help the war on terrorism, it just makes it harder," Awad told a news conference.
The incident prompted British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to raise the issue in person with Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) at the United Nations (news - web sites) in New York.
"The foreign secretary raised the Cat Stevens incident with Colin Powell and expressed concern that this action should not have been taken," a British Foreign Office spokeswoman told Reuters in London.
Muslim groups in Britain also decried the deportation of Islam, who heads a trust that oversees Muslim schools in the country.
"This incident comes only to confirm the farcical and ultimately draconian standards and practices exercised by U.S. immigration authorities," said Anas Altikriti, a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain.
Born Steven Demeter Georgiou in July 1947 to a Swedish mother and a Greek Cypriot father, he changed his name to Cat Stevens when he entered the music world. He had a string of hits in the early 1970s including "Peace Train," "Moonshadow," "Morning has Broken" and "Wild World" before converting to Islam in 1977. (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles)
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