TSA draws fire from Sikh Coalition

NEW YORK, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- A recently revealed screening procedure is drawing criticism from the New York-based Sikh Coalition.

At the beginning of August, the Transportation Security Administration instituted a security checkpoint screening procedure that specifically identifies turban-wearing individuals as requiring a secondary screening. The nation's largest Sikh civil rights organization, the Sikh Coalition, has come out in strong opposition to the new headwear screening procedures.

TSA officials say identifying turbans at the United States' 43,000 airport screening checkpoints is an example of the agency's headwear screening that also includes people wearing cowboy hats or berets among other headwear fashions. The turban is the only form of religious garb identified by the TSA as an example of headwear that could lead to secondary screening.

"Telling screeners to search people in turbans is the same as telling them to search black people or Arabs or Muslims," said Amardeep Singh, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, in a statement. "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. That attitude challenges the spirit of religious pluralism on which our country was built."

Sikh Coalition officials say since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, there have been hundreds of Sikhs harassed, among other civil rights abuses, because of the association of their turbans and beards with terrorism.

The headwear policy is an updated version of a screening procedure created by the TSA in November 2001. Formerly, TSA screeners were required to search Sikhs' turbans only when they had not successfully cleared a metal detector. The new procedures recommend physical pat-downs of the turban.