Muslims women will now have to remove their veils at UK airports

Veiled Muslim women will now have to reveal their identities at airports across Britain following a government diktat after it was revealed that a suspected killer might have escaped the police net dressed in a niqab.
Under the plan, immigration officers would now be legally entitled to ask any female passenger to lift the veil to verify her identity against the passport photograph. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair also welcomed the change, saying airline passengers must remove any headdress that covered the face. The Scotsman quoted a senior Home Office source as saying that Home Secretary John Reid would enforce these legal rights before considering any more significant changes to the existing law that gave immigration officers wide ranging rights to verify the women's identity against their passport photographs."Immigration officers can check beneath veils and they do this at every port of entry, every day of the week. It is done sensitively and in private. Where they don't do it, I suspect it is more often to do with a lack of suspicion than lax procedures or overwork. But we recognise that this sort of thing should be the rule, not the exception," he said.According to the paper, the Immigration Act of 1971 requires everyone entering the UK to satisfy an immigration officer of his/her nationality and identity. Where due to sensitivity or cultural reasons it is not possible for a person to remove a veil or other garment at the immigration control, they are taken to a private area where their identity is verified. (ANI)