CAIRO, Egypt, 7 June — Muslims and Arabs say America won’t be any safer — and won’t improve its image among them — because of its plans to fingerprint and photograph foreign visitors, including nearly all those from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria.
Arab human rights activists denounced the new security measures, which will come into effect this fall, saying they appeared designed to target Muslims and Arabs and arguing that they constituted fresh evidence the United States has been losing its standing as the world’s top advocate of human rights and freedom.
In Malaysia, political scientist Chandra Muzaffar, who has visited the United States twice since the Sept. 11 attacks, says the new measures are unlikely to help the United States deal with terrorism and warned that they would deepen the resentment Muslims the world over feel toward the United States.
"Overcoming terrorism will not be achieved by measures that seem to harass visitors to your country," Muzaffar told the AP in Kuala Lumpur. "The US should instead try to deal with the root causes of terrorism."
US Attorney General John Ashcroft on Wednesday declined to disclose the criteria his government will use to identify which of the 35 million foreign visitors who enter the United States each year might be considered a threat, except to say nearly all visitors from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria — barring some diplomats — will face the new scrutiny.
Visitors from other countries, especially Muslim and Middle Eastern nations, could be identified as potential threats depending on such factors like age or gender and the duration of their stay in the country.
Some visitors will be fingerprinted and photographed on arrival in the United States, while others will be told they were thought to be potential threats before traveling to the United States, according to US officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
Mehran Najeeb, a 31-year-old Bahraini banker, said that after the new security measures were announced, he was no longer looking forward to an upcoming business trip to the United States.
"They are singling us out and something like this will surely make us feel like criminals. This is against human rights," said Najeeb, who was planning to fly to New York next week.
"How would Americans feel if the same was done to them in a foreign country? This is what they call land of the free?"
Already, obtaining a US visa for first-time applicants can take up to a month in some Middle Eastern countries. For years, Iranians have been fingerprinted upon arrival in the United States and their luggage searched meticulously.
"I would never even try to go to the US, I cannot tolerate being insulted, being selected upon arrival to be fingerprinted," said Iranian homemaker Farahnaz Bahadori.
