By Online Desk
Professor Aali Sheen, 51, a top surgeon, who works at Manchester Royal Infirmary and is president of the British Hernia Society, has alleged he was the victim of ‘racial triaging’ at Manchester Airport.
At the Manchester Airport security, he was asked to queue for the the body scanner while a string of white travellers were waved through an archway metal detector, say reports.
“It was racist. It was clear racial triaging,” the doctor was quoted as saying by Manchester Evening News.
The report has the married Pakistani heritage consultant surgeon from Didsbury, who works at Manchester Royal Infirmary and is president of the British Hernia Society, describe how he became involved in a confrontation with a security official in Terminal 1 on April 3 before a flight to Grenoble for a skiing trip for him and two of his three children.
Prof Sheen says he had been queueing for two hours before finally reaching security for his 8am flight. He said a security official motioned him towards a queue at the body scanner even though the smaller archway metal detector was clear and available to use.
He described how he began to question the man after the official had told him ‘you need to go there’, directing him to the queue at the body scanner.
The surgeon said: “I said ‘why?’ and he said ‘because we have a system’. I asked ‘what system is that?’ I challenged him. I knew the reason. It was obvious. To me it was obvious.
“He said ‘just do as you are told’. He was really rude to me and I said ‘don’t talk to me like that’. I told him he needed to give me a reason because why make someone, well, like me need to go through. He started arguing with me. I said to him ‘don’t talk back to me – I’m the customer. I know you are a security officer but I think you are being disrespectful to me’.
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“And then when I collected my bags and looked back I saw an obviously Muslim family and they were all going through the same scanner as me. They were being directed there by the same person. It was just wrong. At the same time other people, shall I say Anglo-Saxons, were being ushered through the small scanner.
The Manchester Evening News report further noted that Prof Sheen wrote an official complaint to Manchester Airport after he landed in Grenoble and airport officials in Manchester began an investigation. When he did not initially get a response, the medic contacted his MP, Withington representative Jeff Smith, who wrote to the airport, and officials promised to escalate the complaint.
On May 27 the doctor received an official response from an airport official, who apologised for the delay and said: “I am sorry to learn, from what you described, that your experience while at our security search area fell below the standard we expect our customers to receive and I regret the inconvenience and distress caused.”
