Outrage has erupted on Chinese social media over the removal of a passenger from a United Airlines flight.
Videos posted online showed a man, who appears to be Asian, being forcibly dragged from his window seat by security officers.
An eyewitness said the man was a “Chinese American doctor” who would not give up his seat, US media reported. The man has not yet been identified.
United Airlines issued an official apology after the incident.
In a video taken by Audra Bridges who was on board the flight from Chicago to Louisville, the visibly distressed man was seen being hauled out of his seat.
It was watched more than 12m times and shared 161,000 times on Facebook.
Photos of his bloodied face also spread quickly online.
Reports said the flight was overbooked and so passengers were selected by United Airlines and asked to take a later flight.
According to the New York Times, passenger Tyler Bridges who witnessed the scene, said that the man had shouted: “I’m being selected because I’m Chinese”.
Ms Bridges in her post said: “This man is a doctor and [said he had] to be at the hospital in the morning. He did not want to get off.” She added that everyone on board was “shaky and so disgusted”.
Outraged passengers witnessing the unfolding events could also be heard in the background yelling and voicing their disgust.
Outrage over the controversial incident soon spread to the Chinese internet, where thousands of shocked and angry netizens took to China’s top micro-blogging site Sina Weibo to express their anger with the US airline.
The story tagged “United Airlines forcibly removes passenger from airplane” also shot to the top of the site’s trending charts, and was read more than 95.5m times.
“I understand that the airline’s reason was that it oversold seats. So they were open to taking people’s money easily and bullying someone, who really needed to be somewhere, when it was of no fault of his own?” wrote Weibo user madanamada in a lengthy blog post that drew more than 550 likes from netizens.
“Look at the way they manhandled the poor Chinese man. He doesn’t look young either. It must have been downright humiliating to have been dragged off in full view of everyone, kicking and screaming.”
Another user said: “Active racial profiling clearly took place here. And America wonders why people attack it for not having respect for social movements?”
Other users like Chang Xiao from Shanghai, shared personal “horror stories” of flying with United Airlines.
“When I was studying overseas, I flew with this airline and found their flight attendants were horribly rude and impatient. My friend and I thought it was because we were Chinese and this incident proves our feelings were correct. How horrible of them to throw a passenger off board just because he looked Asian. What is happening with the world today?
Over on Chinese chat app WeChat, users called for a boycott of the airline until official action was taken.
But some users pointed out that the issue was not necessarily about race.
“The United Airlines should pay a price for this. Not only because the person who was removed from the flight is of Chinese descent, anyone should have the right to refuse such unreasonable treatment. This is dignity,” said on user.
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