timesofindia.indiatimes.com
London: Brown Britain is up in arms over news that the government is discussing with airport operators plans to introduce passenger profiling in what one of the most senior Metropolitan Police officers has slammed as a "brand new offence — travelling whilst Asian".
The proposed screening system, which is thought to be just days from operation, would allow Britain’s harried airport security staff to focus on passengers held to pose the greatest risk because of suspicious behaviour, an unusual travel pattern or, most controversially, because they have a distinct ethnic or religious background.
Critics, including Metropolitan Police’s chief superintendent Ali Dizaei, said it would enshrine the new offence against Crown and country, travelling whilst Asian.
On Tuesday, just hours after the British authorities were understood to be planning an extra layer of security to screen Muslims and by extension all brown airline passengers, officials at the transport department refused to comment on the discussions already under way with airport operators, including lead entity BAA.
The official view is now thought increasingly to incline towards the practical benefits of introducing passenger profiling, despite its politically incorrect implications and ramifications for community relations.
Leaders of Britain’s Muslim community slammed the 'ethnic profiling and discrimination' implicit in the proposed regulations, but British aviation experts insisted there was no other way to speed up security checks at leading airports, currently groaning under the weight of cancelled flights and teeming with desperate passengers either camping in the hope of flying out of the UK or marooned in miles-long security check queues.
On Tuesday, visitors to Britain, particularly those from South and West Asia, expressed concern about Britain’s proposed move to passenger profiling.
Indian passengers, some of whom have already suffered massive delays on account of chaos at Heathrow, told TOI the new passenger profiling regime risked turning them into unwitting martyrs to an alien, jehadi cause.
Said Vikram, a young executive from Mumbai, "It is unfair to lump me with these British-born-and-bred Pakistanis who want to blow up their country."
Philip Baum, editor of trade publication Aviation Defence Intelligence, admitted that wider Asian community fears were partly justified but emphasised that "this (the Asian community) is where the threat is coming from and it makes sense". |
