YouTube stars post video to highlight problem of racial profiling in the US

Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar try out fighting in different modes of dress to prove how differently they can be treated

Adam Saleh and Sheik Akbar prank a US cop (YouTube)

A pair of YouTube stars have posted a video online of a police officer stopping and frisking them both while they are dressed in cultural Muslim clothing, in what they claim highlights the problem of racial profiling in the US.

Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar, who post prank videos on YouTube under the name TrueStoryASA, posted the clip in which they walk past a police officer while dressed in Western clothes, speaking in American accents. They then start pushing and shoving each other before walking off, directly in front of a policeman, who watches them but does not speak to them or intervene.

Twenty minutes later, the same two men walk past the policeman a second time, each in long robes and putting on accents. Saleh, who is wearing a headdress, pokes Akbar in the chest as the pair start arguing.

The police officer frisks them both, asking: “Do you have weapons on you?” and “What’s in your pocket? Is this a gun? A knife?” while grabbing a mobile phone.

In the video, called "Racial Profiling Experiment", which The Independent has been unable to verify whether it was staged, the men then turn around and explain that 20 minutes beforehand they had walked past the police officer in Western clothes, and that he had watched them fight, push each other around, and walk off without him intervening at all.

Saleh and Akbar have said they had been filming a new video for their YouTube channel while wearing their cultural clothing and had been continually “followed by police”.

As a result, they decided to make a video about racial profiling in the US.

“Too many innocent people get stopped and frisked every day because of what they wear or their skin colour," they said. “We’re against people stereotyping others because of what they wear or what skin colour they are."