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Muslim Woman Says TSA Forced Her To Show Her Bloodied Pad During Airport Screening
Zainab Merchant, a graduate student at Harvard University and the founder and editor of the website Zainab Rights, was already anxious about traveling from Boston to Washington, D.C., for a speaking engagement. As a Muslim woman, she was all too aware of a frightening pattern in her travel experiences.
But Merchant, who is based in Orlando, Florida, knew what to prepare for. She knew to get to the airport much earlier than the suggested two hours before her flight, since she expected Transportation Security Administration agents to pull her aside, rummage through her bags and subject her to additional pat-downs and screenings. She said the ordeal has been her new normal for the last two years.
What she did not expect was for a TSA officer to announce to the other agents at the security checkpoint that she needed to take “a deeper look” after publicly patting down Merchant’s groin area.
Merchant said she resisted at first, telling the two TSA officers that she was on her period and therefore wearing a menstrual pad. She insisted that any additional screening be done in public, fearing that if she went into a private room without any other witnesses, the situation would only escalate.
But according to Merchant, TSA officials refused and said that if she did not comply, state troopers who were on standby would intervene. Pressured into a private screening and forbidden to call her lawyer, she was led into a private room where TSA officers demanded that she pull down her pants and underwear, she told HuffPost.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tsa-muslim-woman-bloodied-pad-airport-screening_us_5b7da406e4b07295150f45e5
But Merchant, who is based in Orlando, Florida, knew what to prepare for. She knew to get to the airport much earlier than the suggested two hours before her flight, since she expected Transportation Security Administration agents to pull her aside, rummage through her bags and subject her to additional pat-downs and screenings. She said the ordeal has been her new normal for the last two years.
What she did not expect was for a TSA officer to announce to the other agents at the security checkpoint that she needed to take “a deeper look” after publicly patting down Merchant’s groin area.
Merchant said she resisted at first, telling the two TSA officers that she was on her period and therefore wearing a menstrual pad. She insisted that any additional screening be done in public, fearing that if she went into a private room without any other witnesses, the situation would only escalate.
But according to Merchant, TSA officials refused and said that if she did not comply, state troopers who were on standby would intervene. Pressured into a private screening and forbidden to call her lawyer, she was led into a private room where TSA officers demanded that she pull down her pants and underwear, she told HuffPost.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tsa-muslim-woman-bloodied-pad-airport-screening_us_5b7da406e4b07295150f45e5
16 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
And then there was this:
