‘Nothing new:’ TikTok video shows man harassing Muslim woman at Fort Lauderdale airport
An incident in which a man harassed a woman wearing a hijab at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Monday night has gone viral, after a fellow traveler recorded the encounter. The woman told the Miami Herald said she was shaken by how long it took officials to help her.
Salma Khan, the Muslim woman verbally accosted at the airport, said she was 15 minutes from boarding her flight to Phoenix when the incident occurred. Khan, 27, originally from South Florida, sat on one of the only partly empty rows of seats as the airport was crowded with Thanksgiving travelers.
She then noticed a man staring at her.
“I’m a visible Muslim woman. I wanted to make him comfortable, so I introduced myself,” Khan said.
The man then told Khan that he was “happy this was happening” and alluded to wanting to remove her hijab. She asked him to leave her alone and jumped out of her seat when two strangers rushed in to help.
They physically sandwiched Khan to shield her from the man. But the man, Khan said, called her a terrorist and rambled on about how she — and other Muslims — hate America.
After 10 minutes, a Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy arrived at the gate and escorted the man away. Khan said BSO never took her name or a statement, but the man was switched to a later flight.
BSO hasn’t responded to the Miami Herald’s questions about the incident —or if an arrest was made — as of Thursday afternoon.
Khan said she can’t believe that no official came to her aid during the incident and thanked the good Samaritans who stepped in.
“It does hurt a bit, during such a helpless time, that people in power didn’t step in to help,” she said.
Khan also said bystanders later informed her that the man had followed her around the airport as she shopped for a last-minute gift.
TikTok user Ramona Flowers, who uploaded the three-minute video to the social media site, told the Miami Herald she began recording after noticing that the man was reaching for Khan’s face. She also overheard the man making Islamophobic comments.
Flowers’ video started right as the man said he needed to take photos of Khan and the three strangers helping her for a report to the FBI. He said Khan shouldn’t be “here” and that everyone in the airport was against her.
In the video, Khan, who is visibly uncomfortable, and the people who helped her smiled as the man photographed them.
“I [didn’t] want to give power to his hatred,” Khan told the Herald.
At some point in the video, Flowers shouted at the man to sit down. But he continued to take photos and approach the group. He then decided to sit right next to them.
Three nearby Spirit Airlines agents were preoccupied boarding flights, but one did try to call security, Flowers said. Some time later, a BSO deputy showed up.
Spirit hadn’t responded to a request for comment as of Thursday afternoon.
A TikTok influencer who goes by the name Danesh, who has built a base almost two million followers for identifying people caught on video while in public, helped the video go viral on the platform.
“This is, unfortunately, nothing new,” Danesh said in his video. “I remember being a kid 20 years ago and this being very normal.”
