UK warned against following US in profiling Muslim passengers
Regional-UK, Politics, 8/16/2006

The Times daily reported Tuesday that the UK Department for Transport was in talks with the aviation industry to introduce a screening system that allows security staff to focus on those passengers who pose the greatest terrorist risk.

"The passenger-profiling technique involves selecting people who are behaving suspiciously, have an unusual travel pattern or, most controversially, have a certain ethnic or religious background," it said.

But spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, Innayat Bunglawala warned the government to think 'very carefully' about any plans that would inevitably lead to discrimination and risked further alienating the Muslim community.

Bunglawala said that many Muslims already felt 'unfairly targeted' because of their appearance, and that some form of profiling was already in effect.

"Muslims are not an ethnicity, as was shown by the arrests in last week's raids; there are many white converts to Islam," he also said.

Chief Superintendent Ali Dezaei of the Metropolitan Police warned that profiling would create a new offense of 'travelling whilst Asian'.

"That's unpalatable to everyone. It is communities that defeat terrorism, and what we don't want to do is actually alienate the very communities who are going to help us catch terrorists," said Iranian- born Dezaei, also a member of National Black Police Association.

Speaking on BBC Newsnight on Monday, he said that terrorists come in all different shapes and sizes and that he did not think there's 'a stereotypical image of a terrorist'.

The chief superintendent, who is one of Britain's most senior Muslim police officers, suggested that any profiling should be intelligence-led and could be used for issues like examining a person's travel history or how a ticket is bought.

The report of the proposals come as passengers faced a sixth day of delays at UK airports, despite a slight easing of unprecedented security checks following the police saying they disrupted an alleged plot to blow up flights to the US last Thursday.

Former head of security at the British Airports Authority Norman Shanks predicted that there would be continuing delays at London's main Heathrow Airport until more security staff were hired and new baggage screening machines installed.

"It is going to take longer. In the short to medium term, it is something that passengers will have to tolerate," Shanks told the Guardian newspaper Tuesday.

He suggested that passengers will be looking for the government and aviation industry to come up with faster solutions, including 'more sophisticated hand luggage screeners and behavior pattern recognition'.

Previous Stories:
  UK lowers terror alert but threat still very serious   (8/14/2006)
  UK terrorist bomb story a fabrication: Welsh Muslims   (8/14/2006)
  UK pressures Muslims to counter foreign policy allegations   (8/14/2006)

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