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Letter to the Editor of the Jamaica Daily Gleaner.
April 23 2009.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Editor, Sir:
I've always used the analogy of complaining about the amount of eye make-up worn by a 14-year-old prostitute, but the CanJet incident surpasses that level of hypocrisy.
That a decent traveller would be searched four times before leaving Jamaica but a gunman blithely enters a plane, proves the point I have always made; we are more fascinated by 'how it looks' than 'what it is'.
Anyone who has the misfortune to travel by air will subject themselves to searches that would blush the cheeks of an arresting officer. Citizens who have done no more than buy a ticket to fly are searched more thoroughly and humiliatingly than a chap arrested for murder and put in a cell.
Strip searched
If one decides to depart from Kingston, all flights stop in Montego Bay. This may sound stupid to a normal person, but trust me, this is how the persons who run the airports and Air Jamaica set it.
Once you enter Norman Manley International Airport you might believe you are at Camp Delta in Gitmo. You have no rights. You can be strip-searched at the entrance and strip-searched at the exit, in Kingston.
You are not going anywhere, except to Montego Bay, hence, if you want to save your dignity and your money, drive to Montego Bay to avoid two searches.
Montego Bay is another ridiculously designed airport, where you walk miles from one side of the airport to another; searched as you get off the plane from Kingston, searched as you reach the plane taking you abroad.
Even a sub-human moron would think that having been searched twice before leaving Kingston it would not be necessary to search one who arrives in Montego Bay. But not so to those in charge fall at Montego Bay.
So, all these searches, what do they accomplish? Are they for 'security'? Or are they to allow those who cannot get visas to abuse those who can by subjecting them to humiliating searches?
That Stephen Fray walked on a CanJet plane with a gun is not surprising.
When I was travelling in October, I was subjected to extreme scrutiny as if I were Osama bin Laden. The other passengers breezed by, as all four of the 'security' personal were engrossed with my shampoo
.
If anyone wants to smuggle anything on a plane, simply be a few passengers behind me. I'll keep the girls occupied for the entire time it takes to load that plane.
Purse content
Trust me on this one. I have got a 'profile', Fray doesn't. He'd have been ignored. He could have been standing behind me, and while the girls were fascinated by the contents of my purse, he could have gone into the plane and done what he pleased.
In fact, Osama bin Laden could have been behind me. Who looked for him when they had me?
And what will be the result of the investigation as to how Fray got on to that plane with a gun? I bet there'll now be three searches before leaving Kingston, and three searches upon arrival at MoBay.
I am, etc.,
SUZANN DODD
[email protected]
62 Laws Street
Kingston</div></div>
April 23 2009.
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Editor, Sir:
I've always used the analogy of complaining about the amount of eye make-up worn by a 14-year-old prostitute, but the CanJet incident surpasses that level of hypocrisy.
That a decent traveller would be searched four times before leaving Jamaica but a gunman blithely enters a plane, proves the point I have always made; we are more fascinated by 'how it looks' than 'what it is'.
Anyone who has the misfortune to travel by air will subject themselves to searches that would blush the cheeks of an arresting officer. Citizens who have done no more than buy a ticket to fly are searched more thoroughly and humiliatingly than a chap arrested for murder and put in a cell.
Strip searched
If one decides to depart from Kingston, all flights stop in Montego Bay. This may sound stupid to a normal person, but trust me, this is how the persons who run the airports and Air Jamaica set it.
Once you enter Norman Manley International Airport you might believe you are at Camp Delta in Gitmo. You have no rights. You can be strip-searched at the entrance and strip-searched at the exit, in Kingston.
You are not going anywhere, except to Montego Bay, hence, if you want to save your dignity and your money, drive to Montego Bay to avoid two searches.
Montego Bay is another ridiculously designed airport, where you walk miles from one side of the airport to another; searched as you get off the plane from Kingston, searched as you reach the plane taking you abroad.
Even a sub-human moron would think that having been searched twice before leaving Kingston it would not be necessary to search one who arrives in Montego Bay. But not so to those in charge fall at Montego Bay.
So, all these searches, what do they accomplish? Are they for 'security'? Or are they to allow those who cannot get visas to abuse those who can by subjecting them to humiliating searches?
That Stephen Fray walked on a CanJet plane with a gun is not surprising.
When I was travelling in October, I was subjected to extreme scrutiny as if I were Osama bin Laden. The other passengers breezed by, as all four of the 'security' personal were engrossed with my shampoo
.
If anyone wants to smuggle anything on a plane, simply be a few passengers behind me. I'll keep the girls occupied for the entire time it takes to load that plane.
Purse content
Trust me on this one. I have got a 'profile', Fray doesn't. He'd have been ignored. He could have been standing behind me, and while the girls were fascinated by the contents of my purse, he could have gone into the plane and done what he pleased.
In fact, Osama bin Laden could have been behind me. Who looked for him when they had me?
And what will be the result of the investigation as to how Fray got on to that plane with a gun? I bet there'll now be three searches before leaving Kingston, and three searches upon arrival at MoBay.
I am, etc.,
SUZANN DODD
[email protected]
62 Laws Street
Kingston</div></div>
.....I have NO problem with being searched even a thousand times, as long as it can guarantee that there will be no occurrence like those that we are reading about at home and abroad.
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