America’s largest Sikh civil rights organisation, the Sikh Coalition, has strongly opposed new headwear screening procedures put in place by the Transportation Security Administration earlier this month.
“Telling screeners to search people in turbans is the same as telling them to search black people or Arabs or Muslims. The policy allows screeners to single out travelers on the basis of their religion. The message this sends to the public is that people who wear turbans are dangerous,” said Amardeep Singh, Executive Director of the Sikh Coalition.
“That attitude challenges the spirit of religious pluralism on which our country was built,” he said.
TSA officials told the Sikh Coalition that the new Standard Operating Procedure includes a guidance recommending that America’s 43,000 airport screeners pull aside turban-wearing travellers for secondary screening, based solely on their headwear.
The turban is the only form of religious garb specifically identified by the TSA as an example of headwear that could lead to secondary screening at security checkpoints. Other examples include cowboy hats and berets.
The TSA’s policy accounts for no difference between the turban, a religious requirement, and fashion headwear.
The new policy revokes standard procedures, created in November 2001 to address Americans’ national security concerns, while safeguarding religious freedom. That policy required TSA screeners to search Sikhs’ turbans only when they had not successfully cleared a metal detector. Screeners were required to do as much as possible to avoid physically touching the turban.