HOW DOES HAVING YOUR BAGS SCANNED AT THE AIRPORT CONSTITUTE HARASSMENT?

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The saga of alleged mis­treat­ment of Jamaicans by Trinidadian Immigration offi­cials con­tin­ued when a group of UWI edu­ca­tors alleged they believe they were sin­gled out for spe­cial scruti­ny. This alleged­ly hap­pened when they entered Trinidad and Tobago. The lec­tur­ers said they went to the twin-Island Republic to attend a con­fer­ence at the University’s St Agustine Campus.Dr Peta-Anne Baker, says mem­bers of her group were tar­get­ed for more secu­ri­ty checks as they went through cus­toms. Baker says while they were not mis­treat­ed by the cus­toms offi­cials, it was obvi­ous that Jamaicans are being specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed when they seek to enter Trinidad and Tobago. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​l​a​t​e​s​t​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​.​p​h​p​?​i​d​=​5​0​527.

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So at it’s worst, the bags belong­ing to Jamaicans were scanned and not that of oth­ers. At best Jamaicans trav­el­ling to anoth­er coun­try had their bags scanned. Are you kid­ding me right now, that’s harass­ment? Jamaican Custom and Police Officials are not trust­ed because of their propen­si­ty to accept bribes, why would the belong­ings of Jamaicans not be sub­ject to spe­cial scruti­ny? Or do these (tapa­naris) expect that because they are above Jamaican laws and above being spo­ken to by Jamaican law enforce­ment offi­cials, that it car­ries over to Caricom?

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Get over your­selves , if you do not want your bags scanned ‚do not trav­el to oth­er peo­ple’s coun­try. People are draw­ing the line on crim­i­nal­i­ty, they are pro­tect­ing their bor­ders, if Jamaicans expect to trav­el with­out being sub­ject to scruti­ny, then they should stop export­ing their crimes to oth­er coun­tries and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly attack crime at home. As I said in a ear­li­er post, it does not mat­ter that Trinidad and Tobago has high crime num­bers. At least they have shown that they rec­og­nize it, and are tak­ing steps to pro­tect their peo­ple. Maybe those (tapanaris)[sic] will now use their pow­er and influ­ence to lob­by for an aggres­sive stance against crime back home. If the past is a barom­e­ter of what to expect, I cer­tain­ly will not hold my breath.