Anti-dhimmitude! Muslim Woman Barred from Flight After Refusing Body Scan
THE TELEGRAPH: A Muslim woman is thought to have become the first passenger to be stopped from boarding a flight after refusing to go through a full body scanner for religious reasons.

The passenger was at Manchester Airport for a flight to Islamabad when she was selected at random to pass through the security screen.

She was warned she would not be allowed to board the Pakistan International Airlines flight if she did not comply with the request but she decided to forfeit her ticket.

Her female travelling companion also left the airport after she cited ''medical reasons'' for not wanting to go through the scanner.

More than 15,000 people have already passed through the £80,000 Rapiscan machine at the airport's Terminal 2. The Government introduced the scanner at Heathrow and Manchester airports last month.

Security staff use the X-ray machine to check for any concealed weapons or explosives but it has attracted criticism for also showing clear outlines of passengers' genitals. Civil liberties campaigners have criticised the scanners as an invasion of privacy.

Sources at Manchester Airport said the flight to Pakistan about two weeks ago was busy and that no other passengers objected when chosen to go through the full body scanner after check-in. >>> | Wednesday, March 03, 2010

What Does Not Violate Sharia Law? US Muslim Scholars: Full Body Scanners Violate Sharia Law
THE NEXT WEB: The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), North America’s leading arbiter of Islamic law, has issued a statement saying that full body scanners violate Islamic modesty laws.

“The FCNA emphasizes that a general and public use of such scanners is against the teachings of Islam, natural law and all religions and cultures that stand for decency and modesty,” the Council’s statement said.

In light of Britain’s “no scan, no fly” policy, and with President Obama on the verge of mandating full body scanners in every airport, this is a particularly interesting development.

The FCNA’s demands are relatively simple, they say. Either change the software of the scanners to display only questionable materials on an outline of the body, or allow devout Muslims to request a pat-down instead. >>> Jacob Friedman | Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Pope Enters Airport Body Scanners Row
THE GUARDIAN: Benedict addresses plans for 'virtually naked' passenger images, telling airport bosses personal integrity must be safeguarded

Airport security chiefs may have thought they had enough to worry about with shoe bombers, underpants bombers and people who forget to put their toothpaste into those little plastic bags. But, if so, they were reckoning without Benedict XVI.

At a meeting in the Vatican at the weekend, the pope made an authoritative – if entirely unexpected – incursion into the raging debate over the planned use of airport body scanners. He told an audience from the aerospace industry that, notwithstanding the threat from terrorism, "the primary asset to be safeguarded and treasured is the person, in his or her integrity". >>> John Hooper in Rome | Sunday, February 21, 2010

Islamic Scholars Say Muslims Should Not Use Full-body Scanners
THE MICHIGAN MESSENGER: While the federal Transportation Security Administration explains on its website that full-body scanners at airports using millimeter wave technology “are optional for all passengers,” devout Muslims may not have a choice anymore.

That’s because last week the Indiana-based Fiqh Council of North America issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, that the scanners violate Islam’s teaching on nudity. The council includes two Detroit area scholars. The full-body scanners, broady popular in the wake of the attempted Christmas Day attack over the skies of Detroit by the so-called “underwear bomber,” create detailed three-dimensional images that are used to detect any substances or objects underneath a person’s clothes.

But in the view of the Fiqh Council, an affiliate of the Islamic Society of North America, those detailed, revealing 3D images amount to a violation of Islam’s modesty rules:

“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” reads the fatwa. “Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”

>>> David Alire Garcia | Monday, February 15, 2010