Passenger Refuses To Sit Next To A Woman, Slaps A Flight Attendant—Justifies It To Police As ‘Sharia Law’

A passenger flying to Germany slapped a flight attendant onboard because of “Sharia law.” He had objected to being seated beside female passenger. The incident happened on June 1, on a flight from Samsun, Turkey, to Düsseldorf, Germany, but is now just coming to light. The 29-year old man refused to sit next to the woman. When a female flight attendant intervened, the man slapped her in the face. Dusseldorf police report him explaining himself with “Sharia.” Police met the aircraft in Dusseldorf. The passenger insulted officers in Turkish. One officer understood Turkish, resulting in a second criminal complaint. I was today years old when I learned that insulting police is a crime there. There are three things that seem misreported in headlines about the incident. Many U.S. headlines are describing this as a “punch” but the underlying German reporting appears to consistently describe it was a slap. The passenger was a German citizen, but some reports call him a “Turkish migrant.” The flight is being reported as Turkish Airlines. I first saw the story for instance at Loyalty Lobby. But Turkish says “the incident in question did not occur on a Turkish Airlines flight and is unrelated to Turkish Airlines.” In fact, it was SunExpress flight 1350. (SunExpress was founded as a Lufthansa–Turkish Airlines joint venture, which may explain the confusion.) Sharia is controversial in Germany with Islamist group demonstrations demanding that religious rules supersede German law, and fears in response about decline in traditional society as well as famale equality. The government has banned some Islamist groups such as Muslim Interaktiv. Passengers looking for a more Sharia-compliant experience would be advised to stick with Saudia, Iran Air and Royal Brunei. However, even these carriers generally don’t segregate passengers by sex or guarantee that an unrelated man and woman will not be seated together. That said, IndiGo lets female passengers see during online check-in which seats have already been selected by other women (highlighted in pink) so they can choose to sit together and avoid men creeping on them. Male passengers don’t receive gender information. Topics on this page