A Muslim advocacy group is launching a formal civil rights complaint against Air Canada after a “traumatized” 12-year-old California girl was asked to remove her hijab before a San Francisco to Toronto flight in August.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) says Fatima Abdelrahman and her family want to make sure the airline has changed its policies and training so the same thing doesn’t happen again, and also want the airline to issue a formal, written apology.

“She wants to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone again. They need to treat all their passengers with dignity,” said Ammad Rafiqi, civil rights and legal services co-ordinator at CAIR’s San Francisco-area office.

Air Canada didn’t immediately reply to a Star request for comment.

An Aug. 19th email from Air Canada to the Abdelrahman family said that in the wake of the incident, the airline had “updated” its policies and stressed to staff that hijabs don’t need to be removed. The only garments which need to be removed as part of ID checks are those which cover the wearer’s face.

“We have made it clear to all of our airport agents and their management teams that religious garments such as hijabs, turbans and other headscarves are not required to be removed as they do not obstruct the customer’s face from identification. The update also clarifies that should a passenger be wearing a garment which must be removed in order to verify identity, that it must be done in a private space away from the boarding gate/desk area,” the letter said.

An Air Canada employee asked Abdelrahman, who was travelling to Toronto with the American national junior squash team, to remove her hijab as part of an ID check before boarding the August flight, said CAIR’s complaint. Other employees told her she needed to remove it because she wasn’t wearing the hijab in her passport photo. Instead of allowing Abdelrahman’s request to take the hijab off in a private area, CAIR said, she was forced to remove it in front of other passengers.

“This happened on the jetway, while other passengers were walking past and boarding. They didn’t respect her request for privacy,” said Rafiqi in an interview with the Star. The incident violated U.S. and California civil rights law, the complaint alleges.

Over a month after the incident, Abdelrahman is trying to focus on school and the beginning of the competitive squash season, but is still dealing with the aftermath of what happened, Rafiqi added.

“She’s doing OK. But she was really traumatized,” Rafiqi said.

Abdelrahman told the San Jose Mercury News that she was worried she’d miss her flight, so eventually agreed to remove her hijab. The agent didn’t even look that closely once she’d removed it.

“I quickly took it off and she didn’t really look up,” Abdelrahman told the paper. “She just glanced at the passport and didn’t really look at me. And then she said, ‘OK, go.’”

In addition to demanding changes to Air Canada’s training and policies, Rafiqi says Abdelrahman’s family is demanding financial compensation for what she went through. The money isn’t the primary motivation for the complaint, Rafiqi stressed.

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“Yes, the family is seeking monetary compensation for the trauma she went through. It’s mainly to make sure that Air Canada takes this seriously,” said Rafiqi, adding CAIR hasn’t yet heard back from the airline since filing the complaint Sept. 20.

“We’ve given them two weeks to respond, before we pursue other options,” said Rafiqi, who drafted the complaint to the airline.

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