An Australian man doesn't understand why he was kicked off a flight after writing notes and doodles questioning the existence of terrorism, local newspaper The Age reported.
Oliver Buckworth, 28, said he was on a Tiger Airways flight at Melbourne Airport on Saturday when a passenger became nervous about his notes and alerted a flight attendant. Australian Federal Police swooped in and hauled Buckworth off the Gold Coast-bound flight. He was later blacklisted by the airline.
Buckworth's notebook displayed a series of doodles and comments on the "absurdity" of the rampant fear in Australia over the increasing threat of the Islamic State, which continues to commit atrocities in Iraq and Syria and is suspected of influencing home-grown militants. In one month alone, two Americans and one British hostage were executed in videos the jihadists uploaded online.
"In a land of melting-ice creams, sandy feet and fluffy bears, how could anyone be fearful of terrorism," reads a page in Buckworth's notebook, according to The Age.
Another doodle includes a mash-up of words reading "Terrorismadeup."
A passenger saw his doodles and alerted flight staff, who then called AFP. He was "off loaded" from the plane, questioned and subjected to a background check, The Age reported. He was later released.
The interior designer said he is no criminal and denounced the passenger and airline's actions as "ridiculous."
"This man simply took something out of context that I was writing in my book. Just so you know and this whole fear thing isn't installed even further," he told the newspaper.
Tiger Airways confirmed it responded to an incident involving a "disruptive passenger" but did not say if Buckworth was kicked off because of his writings.
The incident comes as the Australian government launched a crackdown on suspected local Islamist extremists by conducting raids and raising the national threat level.
"The irony is I was writing a sentence about the absurdity of the fearmongering when we live in such a happy country of ice-cream and beaches and fluffy things," Buckworth told the newspaper.
