The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

The largest civil rights organization of American Sikhs has expressed outrage at a new US airport security policy that it said allows arbitrary searches of turbans, a sacred headdress for members of the religion. The Sikh Coalition said Saturday it had been informed by the Transportation Security Administration that under its new guidelines, turbans could be subject to manual pat-downs even if their wearers had passed a metal detector test "Telling screeners to search people in turbans is the same as telling them to search black people or Arabs or Muslims," Amardeep Singh, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, said in a statement "The policy allows screeners to single out travelers on the basis of their religion."

Singh argued that the message the new TSA policy sends to the public is that "people who wear turbans are dangerous."

"That atitude challenges the spirit of religious pluralism on which our country was built," he stated.

TSA spokeswoman Lara Uselding, reached by AFP by telephone late Saturday, acknowledged that on August 4, the agency that oversees security at 450 US airports as well as railroads, ports and mass transit systems revised its screening procedures for head coverings.

But she denied the changes that will be carried out by all 43,000 US airport screeners had anything to do with religious beliefs espoused by travelers.