I just wanted to know if any of you or people that you know of, have been harrassed or percieved as a criminal at the airport, while coming back in to the country (UK) or entering another country?

I ask this because quite recently, my family and i spent a week in Norway. On our way back at stanstead airport, a woman was questioning us about where we have come from, and started asking my dad about how he gained his british passport among other things. The woman then decides to let everyone thorugh except my dad. They took him off for questioning, and accused him of being a drug dealer. My dad is 50 years old, and has never committed a criminal activity in his life. They then tell him that they want to initiate a strip search, in which my dad refused, stating that he would stay here all day, and that they can call the police if they want to, becasue he is a grown man who will not be dehumanised like that. They then start asking him question like 'you have been to Norway 3 times in a year, why'? He replies to visit family, but they can't concieve, why a black man would be goinmg to a white country, to visit family, so it must be drugs! My dad was the only black man on the flight. After shouting and arguing with them, telling them that the real ones were getting away while they were holdinghim, in which they replied 'ohso you now drug dealers then?they finally let him go. My dad was shocked at the situation, and my sister and brother joked that it was because, of his black leather jacket and pimp chain, he laughed as well, but i could tell that he was hurt about the whole thing.

I have had friends who family members were forced to open up their suitcases, and other types of nonsense.

When i arrived in Norway and collected my baggge, i saw an interogation room, in which the door was absently left open. Iabout 5 youngAfrican men,in the room and one appeared tobe in the process of putting his clothes back on.He must of probably just finished being strip searched.My mother and i just shook our heads in disgust.

The Immigration Officer is on dangerous ground. She has accused your father of being a drug dealer without a shred ofevidence. What lead her to that conclusion? If she was so sure why couldn't initiate a strip search? Surely it's within her powers? She also may have written a report of the incident.

I would go back or write to the Immigration and Nationality Dept and complain about theway he was treated.

Concious Sistah: to be honest and I have to fair about this ..I've never been harrassed by British Immigration officials...I have however had my bags searched in JA, in Cuba (and this case we were the only people searched and guess what we were the only BLACK couple on the bus)...I also had this done to me in Italy taken from the check in line and subjected to the search..

What saw however coming back everytime I come back from JA..is that this flight is heavily policed and monitered by Immigration, I compare this to my arrival back from South East Asia...where I didn't even see a fly at the baggage area.. this contrast from my last arrival back from JA..where there had to be no less than 25 officials lined up picking BLACK people at random..

But that said I have to say we must post 9/11 expect this..there is definately racial profiling going on..and we will feel the brunt of it... My guess is that they mistook your father for someone else, they were trailing... hence his treatment..

everyone has a job to do but do it with respect

The only time I have been searched was in JA, the woman looked through by stuff as though she was looking to do her shopping... I ended up giving her my half empty bottle of perfume, which she blantantly asked me for.....

My brother on the other hand gets searched everywhere he goes... and he is a hard working honest black man that has NEVER been in any type of trouble at all.. however he never gets bothered when he returns to the UK for some strange reason, neither have I, but I know others that have though.

I feel sorry for your dad though... if it was my dad I would have been pissed as hell.

oh i am veryaware that everyone has a job to do, and being an immigration officer, it is their job to monitor with suspicion who is entering the country. The only thing that bothers me is the treatment of individuals while they carry out their investigations. It is very disrepectful, and i've heard even worse examples of how people were treated by immigration officers. I know we are living in post 9/11, among other stark realities in this world, butsurely this does not constitute ridiculous,disrepectful and uncessarybehaviour.

You know what makes me laugh (sarcastically that is) about this sort of thing?

Literally billions of £'s/$'s (street value) worth of drugs annually, find their way onto the streets of Britain (and other European countries, not to mention the US), and if 1% of it gets in through 'ya common travelling drug courier' even that would be substantial. Every single passenger (black, white and all and sundry) on every single flight would have to be a courier and be getting through customs with bags of the stuff to account for even a significant portion of the drugs trade.

The authorities (aka Governments) know this and know very well that the amounts they spend on airport security targetted towarddrugtrafficking is nothing more than PR stuff. They could stop every single black person from catching a plane from now untildoomsday, and I guarantee that the drug problem will continues to run wild unabated would hardly be dented.

It suits 'their' purposes to 'create' the perception that 'drug mules' (especially of the Jamaican variety) are the cause of why so much drugs are getting into the country. Kiss teet!

Respect

I hear you with the comments made and I have to say as a brother with a maine of dredlocks on my head I get stopped and searched everywhere I go.

To be honest with you I tend to challenge it in writting and make a formal complaint as I feel it has more effect.

I have made so many formal complaints now that when I come in my name is so well known by the top managers atThis endthe moment they run my name up on the computer they can see I have made 22 complaints in writting for being stopped so they just let me through in embarassment.niceone.gif