WASHINGTON: Sikh advocacy groups in the US have-demanded stop to the screening of turbans at airports, arguing the additional search of their religious headwear is not required as the travellers pass through full-body scanners.
Sikh organisations have said federal transportation officials plan to always search turbans at airport screening stations even if wearers pass through the state-of-the-art body imaging scanners.
The groups are calling on their constituents to lobby the Congress and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to over turn what hey said was an “unjust policy”, the New York Times reported.
Officials from the Sikh Coalition United Sikhs and the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund said on Friday they met with representatives of the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA several weeks ago.
”All of us jointly feel there are definitely some elements of racial profiling here,” said Jasjit Singh, associate director of the Legal Defense Fund, a civil rights group.
Hansdeep Singh, a senior staff lawyer for the New York based United Sikhs, said the meeting in Washington was arranged to hear about how new “advanced imaging technology” scanners would affect Sikhs. They had hoped the devices would eliminate the need for extra screening that they say they were subjected to at airports.
But the community representatives said they were told that the turbans would be treated “as a per se anomaly”, Singh said. They said TSA officials declined to tell them whether the scanner was incapable of seeing through a turban, which typically had layers of fabric.
The advocacy groups met with officer for civil rights and civil liberties Margo Schlanger at the Department of Homeland Security and special counsellor to the TSA administrator Kimberly Walton the New York Times said. .
More than 300 body scanners have been installed at 65 airports in the US, according to the TSA website. An additional 450 scanners are set to be installed by next year.
TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said: “Removal of all headwear is recommended, but the rules accommodate those with religious, medical or other reasons, for which ‘the passenger wishes not to remove the item.”
“If the officer cannot reasonably determine that the clothing or head covering is free of a threat item, individuals will be referred for additional screening,” she said.
SOURCE-HT : taken from : punjabnews.org
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