CAIRO – A UC Berkeley Muslim student has been removed from a Southwest Airlines flight, humiliated and interrogated by FBI after another passenger reported him for speaking Arabic on phone.

“All I need is an apology to say, ‘We are sorry we singled you out because [of] one person who felt threatened,’” student Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, told The Daily Californian.

Makhzoomi, a 26-year-old Iraqi refugee, left Iraq in 2002 after his father, an Iraqi diplomat, was killed under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

His family fled to Jordan, where they lived until the United States granted his family asylum.

The incident occurred earlier this month when he was flying home from attending a dinner at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council with Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon.

Before the Southwest Airlines flight takes off, the Muslim student made a call with his uncle.

Makhzoomi explained that conversation was conducted in Arabic and, as he said goodbye, he used the phrase “inshallah,” which translates as “if God is willing.”

Ending the call, he noticed a female passenger looking at him who then got up and left her seat.

“She kept staring at me and I didn’t know what was wrong,” he explained. “Then I realized what was happening and I just was thinking ‘I hope she’s not reporting me.’”

Moments later, an airport employee asked Makhzoomi to step off the plane and onto the passenger boarding bridge where he was greeted by three security officers.

The student was told he would not be allowed to get back on the plane as he heard one of the security officers speaking with the FBI.

“At that moment I couldn’t feel anything,” he said. “I was so afraid. I was so scared.”

“That is when I couldn’t handle it and my eyes began to water,” he said.

“The way they searched me and the dogs, the officers, people were watching me and the humiliation made me so afraid because it brought all of these memories back to me. I escaped Iraq because of the war, because of Saddam and what he did to my father. When I got home, I just slept for a few days.”

Islamophobic

Though the airlines released a statement denying that the incident was a result of discrimination, experts asserted that prejudice against Muslims has institutional effects that manifest in airport security strategies and general police suspicion.

“Since 9/11, we’ve seen a steady increase in anti-Muslim bias and dissemination of fear about Muslims in the United States. That trend has really spiked during this current electoral season,” Charles Hirschkind, a campus associate professor of anthropology who specializes in Islam and the Middle East, said.

“Candidates have said things like Muslims should not be allowed to immigrate to this country. … All of these kinds of statements really ramp up both the level of fear and also the level of bias and prejudice and racism that Muslims face.”

US Muslims, estimated at between seven to eight million, have been sensing hostility since 9/11 attacks.

Anti-Muslim sentiments have reached an all-time high after the rise of the so-called Islamic State, formerly known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

This is not the first incident for American Muslims in flights.

In 2009, nine members of a Muslim family were removed from a domestic AirTran Airways flight to Orlando, Florida, after they chatted about their seats in the plane.

Another incident occurred in 2006 when six imams were removed from a domestic flight for what passengers considered suspicious behavior.

They were removed from the flight, handcuffed and detained in the airport for questioning for over five hours.