Air security won’t ask for veiled Muslims to prove ID
Brian Lilley and Bryn Weese
CNews-Canoe.ca
8/1/2010
OTTAWA – Frequent flyers know the drill: take off your shoes, surrender your tweezers and pack your shampoo in those little plastic baggies before lining up for the naked body scanners. But lift your niqab? Apparently not.
QMI Agency can reveal that neither airlines nor security services are asking Muslim women to lift their veils and prove that the face beneath matches their photo ID.
The issue came to light through a video taken by Mick Flynn of Bradford, England. Flynn was boarding a flight at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport when he witnessed two women with their faces covered board an Air Canada Heathrow bound flight without being asked to remove their veils.
In fact, in the video that Flynn has posted online, a man traveling with the group hands in all the passports and is the only one to interact with airline staff while two veiled women simply walk through.
…Most airports have wide gaps between where baggage is checked and the secure portions of the airport.
Transport Canada says there should be no confusion: “The airline must be able to verify the identity of all passengers before they are allowed to board,” the department said in a written statement.
Lawyer David Harris of INSIGNIS Strategic Research says Canadians should be concerned about what he deems preferential treatment.
“Full veiling has been a boon for those participating in criminal and terrorist operations,” Harris said pointing to the story of Mustaf Jama…
Read the entire article at CNews-Canoe.ca
H/T Blazing Cat Fur who added this from the Ottawa Sun, “Not banning full-body coverings lets a despicable part of medieval culture live on in a society that should know better.”
