"British Muslims warn over being singled out at airport gates"

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Muslims warn over being singled out at airport gates 
By Dan Milmo, Will Woodward and Sam Jones
United Kingdom - The Guardian 


A leading British Muslim group last night warned the government to think
"very carefully" following reports that the Department for Transport was in
talks with the aviation industry to introduce a method of passenger
profiling which could be used to single out Muslims for security checks.

The Muslim Council of Britain said the procedure, which includes
"behavioural pattern recognition", would inevitably lead to discrimination.
Inayat Bunglawala, its spokesman, said the government risked alienating "the
community whose help it needs in combating the terrorist threat". He said:
"Before some kind of religious profiling is introduced, a case has to be
made; and we are certainly not convinced by the arguments for this kind of
profiling. First of all, Muslims are not an ethnicity, as was shown by the
arrests in last week's raids; there are many white converts to Islam."

Mr Bunglawala said that many Muslims already felt they were "unfairly
targeted" because of their appearance and that some form of profiling was
already in effect. "This kind of thing must be intelligence-led, not
appearance-led ... I hope the government has thought very carefully about
this."

The reports came as a former head of security at BAA, the airport owner,
predicted further delays at Heathrow until more security staff were hired
and new baggage screening machines installed.

"It is going to take longer [to get to departure gates]. In the short to
medium term, it is something that passengers will have to tolerate," said
Norman Shanks, who is now an airport security consultant. "Long term,
passengers will be looking for the government and industry to come up with
faster solutions." Mr Shanks said those solutions might include more
sophisticated hand luggage screeners and behaviour pattern recognition. A
Department for Transport spokesman last night declined to comment on the
reports.

Airports endured a fifth day of disruption yesterday despite a relaxation of
baggage restrictions after the government downgraded the terrorist threat
from "critical" to "severe". Passengers are now allowed to carry one small
piece of hand baggage on to aircraft, but airlines warned of continued
delays and cancellations caused by emergency measures requiring body
searches.

At the height of last week's threat, all passengers were searched. This has
been reduced to one in two, but is still double the numbers that airports
are used to. BAA, owner of Heathrow airport, said it would try to run a
cancellation-free schedule at Europe's busiest airport today. "Our target is
a full operation," said a spokesman. But British Airways last night
confirmed it was considering suing BAA for lost earnings estimated at £50m,
as the airport firm shoulders most of the blame for the disruption. It also
emerged last night that BAA is refusing to a pay a Metropolitan police bill
for the policing of Heathrow.

One in 10 flights to and from Heathrow was cancelled yesterday. Hundreds of
passengers queued in overspill marquees outside Terminal 4. BAA delayed
fully implementing the new rules at its two largest airports until this
morning, while regional airports such as Manchester adopted the changes
within a few hours.

British Airways has cancelled more than 1,000 flights since last Thursday,
and expected disruption at Heathrow and Gatwick for several days as the
changes bedded in. "We expect it will take longer for people to get through
security than it was before Wednesday [last week] and we expect that to
remain the case for a few days yet," said a BA spokesman.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said the latest procedures were
under "constant review" but were likely to be long-term. "What is clear is
that the security threat has changed over the last week and we are unlikely
to go back to the regime that we had in the past," he said.

BAA continues to draw criticism from airlines for its handling of the
crisis. BAA also confirmed a Channel 4 news report last night that it
refused a Metropolitan police request to pay £35m towards the cost of
policing this year, pending the outcome of a Department for Transport review
of airport security costs.

Ryanair, which operates from BAA-owned Stansted, cancelled eight flights
from the airport yesterday; it called the new restrictions "nonsensical":
"Twice the normal number of passengers passing through the x-ray security
machines must now be body-searched. If the government wants to double the
number of security checks, it must provide the extra staffing (army or
police personnel)," it said, also criticising the hand baggage limit of a
holdall no bigger than a small laptop bag.

First Choice Holidays was "disappointed" customers had to queue and suffer
because of a lack of resources. Virgin Atlantic, another Heathrow tenant,
said it was considering all options, including legal action and rebates, to
recover costs.

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