Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Ayoon wa Azan (Intimate Search)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Ayoon wa Azan (Intimate Search)

    Dar Al-Hayat, Saudi Arabia
    Dec 3 2004

    Ayoon wa Azan (Intimate Search)
    Jihad Al Khazen Al-Hayat 2004/12/3

    The annual hunting trip to Hungary included a friend who carries a
    Lebanese passport, which is problematic enough. Nevertheless, when he
    applied for a Hungarian visa at their embassy in London, the wrong
    visa was stamped on his passport (the visa was for a girl named
    Isabelle, with her photograph on it - same as many of the current
    visas). He was lucky enough to notice the error and returned to the
    embassy where the visa was canceled and was given one with his name
    and picture.

    At Budapest Airport, we all headed off together with our British,
    Canadian, Saudi, and Jordanian passports. We waited for an hour
    before our friend could join us. Because he was Lebanese, the
    passport control employee got suspicious, which later increased at
    the sight of the annulled visa. Our friend was not released until the
    Foreign Ministry was contacted and thankfully we arrived on a working
    day; otherwise, he would have missed the entire hunting trip.

    On our way out, my friend described the event as trivial compared to
    his experience at New York's airport; he also has a U.S. visa, which
    he regularly renews since most of his business is there. Upon getting
    his latest renewal, he realized that the place of birth was
    registered: Iraq - although he was born in Bourj Hammoud (Lebanon);
    he returned to the embassy where the visa was annulled and replaced
    with a new one.

    The result was hours of investigation in New York, coupled with an
    intimate strip search; although his passport showed that he has been
    to the U.S. many times a year over the past few years. Moreover, the
    annulled visa clearly stated: annulled without fault of passport
    bearer. However, my Armenian-Lebanese friend looks guilty, much like
    most of my friends. If I doubt him, then the Hungarian and American
    security are excused.

    Day after day, I hear of horror stories around the world's airports,
    specifically the United States, following the enforcement of strict
    measures in fear of terrorism. Personally, I was not harassed, in
    spite of my name. Furthermore, it seems that the British passport
    makes me an accomplice in the war on terror, which allows me peaceful
    passage.

    In any case, this is all an introduction. What inspired me to write
    about the topic is last week's article by The New York Times
    columnist Maureen Dowd entitled "Hiding Breast Bombs." In it she
    discussed the embarrassment or occasional humiliation experienced by
    the female American travelers while undergoing intimate strip
    searches, sometimes at the hands of a Transportation Security
    Administration (TSA) male screener. It seems that the laws in America
    were even stricter since last September in response to the attacks on
    the Russian plane by the two Chechen female suicide bombers a few
    weeks earlier.

    Body search around the breasts is easier than other parts -
    inappropriate for publications. Furthermore, The Times Joe Sharky
    chronicled the experiences of women's experiences of the "breast
    exam:" a 71 year-old woman was subjected to the breast pat-down in
    the search for explosives. Singer and actress Patti LuPone got barred
    from her flight for resisting taking off her shirt because she was
    wearing nothing underneath. Perhaps the TSA screeners have an excuse
    since; some explosive materials are fluid in nature and cannot be
    detected through X-Ray machines, which gives rise to the need to look
    for them anywhere that they could be concealed. I once saw the
    picture of an Israeli soldier inspecting the breast of a veiled
    Palestinian woman carrying two infants; I thought it was enough
    provocation for them to carry out operations against Israel when they
    grow up.

    When Maureen Dowd (an American) is strip searched in America, it
    makes the inspection of an Armenian-Lebanese friend with his thick
    moustache and Middle Eastern features like all terrorists, the best
    thing that can happen to him in New York. At least, the men at
    customs did not refer to him as Isabelle; like we did in Hungary.

    The friend was a victim of error; our neighbor in London was the
    victim of a "correction" attempt; upon her arrival in New York, while
    on vacation with her husband and children, the well-informed customs
    officer asked the woman while inspecting her British passport: Born
    in Damascus? You are Iraqi. Welcome. The friend replied: Damascus,
    Syria. The officer insisted on Damascus being in Iraq. Rather than
    keeping quite to find a pro-unity of Arabs customs employee in
    America, our friend insisted on the correction and ended up in a
    three hour investigation in a glass room.

    Back in the day, we used to travel without being frisked. In the
    1960s however, plane hijacking began, and we started being searched.
    At first, the planes were highjacked to Cuba. Our 'brothers' took to
    the idea, and it became the fad in all countries.

    Highjacking is easier than detonation. Before the two Chechen females
    incident, a man had attempted to blow up a plane with an explosive
    hidden in his shoe; as a result, we started to remove our shoes,
    which calls for our socks to have no holes.

    While the most I had personally experienced is removing my jacket,
    shoes and belt, I know people who did all this but were still refused
    entry to the United States; either for name similarities, or for
    doubting that the visitor intends to immigrate - not to visit as he
    claims.

    Today, there are new laws against illegal immigration or an
    intensification of the ones that already exists in Europe, the United
    States, and many other countries. If these laws were to be enforced
    retroactively, the whites would return to Europe and America will be
    handed back to the Red Indians.

    I do not expect this to happen any time soon. Nevertheless, I do
    expect the continuity of harassing all the travelers, men and women,
    with the fuel surcharge, resulting in the United States expecting 586
    million air passengers this year - a record figure - with an $80
    billion loss for the airlines.

    The financial losses and harassment due to the airport searches is
    nothing compared to life endangerment by terrorists. In spite of all
    this, I find that there are some who support terrorism or invent
    excuses for it.

    Since I am no Hercules, I prefer harassment with safety. All the
    same, some security measures make no sense; such as patting down an
    elderly woman, or focusing on an annulled visa of a friend who is in
    a party of seven carrying 15 hunting rifles, some of which are
    automatic.

    Some of us travel on business, i.e. not by choice. Others, travel on
    holiday, to whom I say if he/she really looks like the passport
    picture, then he/she is really sick and is better off not getting on
    the plane.

    Travel documents are no longer restricted to humans. We have a cat
    and a dog and have obtained two British passports for them, because
    the family spends the summer in the south of France. Pet passports
    are a microchip under the neck's skin, and when the specialized
    device decodes it all of the cat or dog's details appear - including
    the name, age, weight, residence, and medical records.

    The dog is loyal is to its owner, not the house; hence it travels
    with us to France. However, the cat's loyalty goes to the house
    rather than its owner; therefore it usually stays in London - so as
    not to run away in France. Since our dog is friendly, it would
    welcome any search to prove its innocence. The cat, on the other
    hand, is vicious; I could imagine it bury its claws in the inspector,
    as he deserves.

    I read of an Englishman proud of his cat's possession of a British
    passport, while Mohamad Al Fayed cannot get one. When a man owns
    Harrods, why would he want to travel?
Working...
X