NEW YORK - AN AIRLINE passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded US$240,000 (S$353,425) in compensation, campaigners said on Monday.

Mr Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York's JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.

'The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling,' said Mr Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.

Mr Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: 'We will not be silent'.

He was told other passengers felt uncomfortable because an Arabic-inscribed T-shirt in an airport was like 'wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, I am a robber', the ACLU said.

Mr Jarrar eventually agreed to cover his shirt with another provided by JetBlue. He was allowed aboard but his seat was changed from the front to the back of the aircraft.

Last week, nine Muslims, including three children, were ordered off a domestic US flight after passengers heard what they believed were suspicious remarks about security.

Although the passengers, eight of them US citizens, were cleared by the FBI, they were reportedly still barred from the AirTran flight.

Security has been at a high level in US airports since the September 11, 2001 hijacked airliner attacks against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

However, rights groups and representatives of the Muslim community say the security measures have led to frequent discrimination and harassment. -- AFP