Newsstand - For airport screeners, more training about Muslims

As pilgrims return from the hajj, the TSA gives its workers a refresher on how to treat Muslims at US security checkpoints.

By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK – Say you're a security screener at the airport. You notice a large group of people wearing white robes, speaking a strange language. The women have head scarves and the men long beards. They look nervous. One of them is holding a Koran. Another appears to be praying. What do you do?

According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), simply assume they're devout Muslims returning from the annual hajj in Mecca.

During the next few weeks, as many as 20,000 American Muslims will be returning to the United States from their pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. The TSA has ramped up cultural-awareness training for all 43,000 of its screeners. The goal: to remind screeners what to expect from devout Muslims and how to go about screening them so it's in concert with their religious beliefs.

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Full story here:
www.csmonitor.com/2007/0109/p02s01-ussc.html

The TSAers at airports see muslim flyers quite frequently, whether they know it or not. The only thing (besides quantities and perhaps attire) that would be more unusual in relation to muslim travellers than at other times when muslims fly is the checking in of a container or two of water from hajj.

Given the socio-economic background of Americans who are muslims (i.e., wealthier than average household, more likely to have family members elsewhere in the country and abroad than average household, etc.), I suspect that said demographic group travels more than the average American and this is unlikely to be the first or only trip for hajj-going muslims in a given year.

NEW YORK – Say you're a security screener at the airport. You notice a large group of people wearing white robes, speaking a strange language. The women have head scarves and the men long beards. They look nervous. One of them is holding a Koran. Another appears to be praying. What do you do?

Screen them like any other passengers? :p (I feel like being a smartass here.)