By: Aneeqa du Plessis

Following a call from the Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) SA for local Muslims to know their rights regarding searches at airports, VOC Board of Trust member and events curator, Nadia Jacobs, has come forward in contempt to expel the sentiments made by the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) security chief Mzwandile Petros to the MJC who claimed searches and screenings are done at random.

This comes after Jacobs and several other Muslim women donned in hijab have criticized the way they were screened by security at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. According to Jacobs, the ‘harassing, threatening, intimidating, and sheer intolerance towards Muslims’ displayed at the airport was inexcusable.

Jacobs said staff insisted she removed her hijab to search her, but she refused as the metal detector alarm did not ‘beep’.

“I said but the alarm didn’t go off, so she [security] said it’s because of the doek, those were her exact words.”

“The way they handled me was Islamophobic. I have travelled to both America and Tel Aviv, but I have never experienced such a discriminatory security personnel,” said a shaken Jacobs.

However, Petros admitted to the MJC that personnel “may at times err in being too aggressive with travelers”, and while religious profiling does happen at international airports, it remains “criminal, unconstitutional, and illegal” to do so in South Africa.

Jacobs has requested a public apology from the airport company.

“They need to acknowledge their wrong doings and they need to apologize for the ill-treatment,” added Jacobs.

VOC