Travelling whilst asian...

I don't know how Pakistan Internatinal Airline (PIA) or Air India manage to do it - transport all of those asian people around the globe every day like they do, we're having a terrible problem in the UK trying to do it.

The problem is you see that as well as the terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001, we've had the London bombings in July of last year and another attempted attack in august of that year, and then two weeks ago 21 people were arrested in London accused of plotting to board aircraft with concealed chemicals in order to cause explosions on aircraft.

So what are we to do ?

Well the tabloid newspapers know what to do - urge their readers to keep an eye open for anyone who "looks asian" and who is "acting suspiciously" at airports, and the great British tabloid reading public have done just that, hunting down "asian looking people" wherever and whenever they have the nerve to appear in an airport lounge.

A few weeks ago the UK's most senior muslim police officer, Chief Superintendant Ali Dizaei warned that we were in danger of creating an offence in this country of "travelling whilst asian", news link here, at which his own Federation accused him of sensationalism and inflaming muslim opinion.

He has been proved correct.

Just last Wednesday I was listening to our local radio station, BBC Radio Leeds, who were carrying a story from a local man who would certainly fit the description of "looking like an asian" and who was explaining how his elderly mother had been offloaded from an America bound flight at Manchester Airport, (actually taken off the plane whilst it was preparing for departure) held without explanation for three hours, missed her flight and then had had to be collected from the airport by her family, again without explanation from her detainees.

Unfortunately this story never made the national news because the family had requested the radio station to keep their annonimity, they were embarassed and their elderly mother was upset and confused by her treatment - what they did say was that all she could remember was being asked repeatedly what her connections with Pakistan were, her answer, quite correctly, was that she had no connection with Pakistan, nor was there a muslim connection - she had a UK passport, the family were originally from India and were of the Sikh religion.

It was a suprising story, suprising to me anyway, I niavely thought we were better than this, I, in my stupidity, thought that our "security experts" would be able to quickly check the credentials of someone who was "travelling whilst asian" and prevent such a monumental cock-up.

I guess I was wrong.

Because it happened again last week.
Probably on the same day actually.

The news story broke this weekend of a pair of "asian looking people" who were offloaded from a holiday charter flight departing from Malaga in Spain travelling to Manchester.

The reason for this ?

The other passengers (no doubt tabloid reading, easily panicked, on alert citizens) had demanded their removal from the flight because "they were acting suspiciously" - and lets not forget that they were "travelling whilst asian".

The reason for their suspicion was that the two men in question were wearing pullovers and jackets, whereas everyone knows that in Spain you should wear shorts, tee shirts, socks and sandals, even for a night flight, even when you're flying back to Manchester where the weather at the moment is inclement to say the least, November-like would be more accurate.

The men were offloaded amidst their fellow passengers outrage at their presence, and were "questioned for several hours" thus missing their flight, then released without charge and returned on another flight "a few days later" - guilty as charged, "travelling whilst asian".

Personally I would have thought that a simple question on the lines of "could we search your jacket and pullovers please gentlemen" would suffice, being as they had already passed through the "heightened security checks", a quick search for bottles of fluid, chemicals or mobile phones would have sorted the matter out in minutes rather than "questioning for several hours" and creating yet another press story of "travelling whilst asian" which is surely going to inflame muslim extremist opinion and reaction far more the Chief Superintendant Ali Dizaei had ever intended.