Pan Am Is Sued Over Barring Iraqi Passengers

A civil liberties oranization Thursday asked for a federal court order to stop Pan American World Airways from barring Iraqi nationals from both domestic and international flights.

Pan Am was charged by the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee with having “unilaterally embarked on a new wave of McCarthyism.”

Acting on behalf of Salam Salman of New York, an Iraqi political refugee, the committee’s general counsel, Eric Lieberman, argued that Pan Am’s refusal to allow Salman to purchase a ticket to Czechoslovakia on Wednesday violated anti-discrimination provisions of the Federal Aviation Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other civil rights statutes.

A Pan Am spokesman, Elizabeth Hlinko, said the airline would have “no comment whatsover” on the suit.

Lieberman said Salman sought political asylum in the United States in 1984. It was granted, and he is now a permanent resident of the United States. His father, an Iraqi government adviser, was executed in 1963 by the Baathist regime that brought Saddam Hussein to power.