Federation protest wards off turban hand searches

A nationwide protest organised by the Sikh Federation (UK) has brought a halt to Department of Transport (DfT) plans to implement hand searches of turban-wearing passengers at British airports.

Through a countrywide petition, the federation enlisted the aid of Sikh temples and organisations to head off  hand checks of turbans, or instructions for headwear to be removed.

Changes in checking procedures order by the EU are being introduced across Europe but a DfT spokeswoman told the BBC that UK airports had been advised to continue using existing methods of screening religious headwear.

This involves passengers who set off the walk-through metal detector alarms then being scanned with hand-held detectors.

The EU wants security staff to use their hands for second checks – not part of present procedure.

The Dft spokeswoman said the department would work with the airport industry and religious communities to find a long-term solution.

Journalist Dil Neiyyar of the BBC Asian Network revealed that one UK Sikh was asked to take his turban off at Barcelona airport but declined to do so and, refused a flight, had to make his way home with three Sikh colleagues to England by train.

Vinder Singh, a medical rep from Dudley in the West Midlands, was told to take off his turban in front of other travellers, even though he had not set off the metal detector alarm. He allowed a security guard to feel and check the turban but would make no further concessions.

Mr Singh said he and his colleagues felt they were treated as criminals and potential terrorists because they were wearing turbans.

The Sikh Federation’s Dabinderjit Singh called the touching of a turban by someone other than the wearer “disrespectful” and “almost a humiliation”.

Dil Neiyyar reminds Asian Network listeners that turban wearing in Britain became protected in a 1983 House of Lords ruling over a case in which a Birmingham teenager was refused entry to school because of his turban.