Roger Nair lashes Out at US Airport officials over Shahrukh Khan

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Bollywood star ShahRukh Khan's detention Foolish and apalling | Photo 02

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SAHRA condemns Shahrukh's detention and its chair film maker Roger Nair recounts Kamal Haasan detention by US at Toronto airport while shooting with Roger Nair Productions.

Incompetence and arrogance, Obama administration should teach US officials how to use their own product ; Google, starts Mr. Nair with one eyebrow raised and adds  that this is a Classic case of racial profiling where it doesn't matter if it’s a Bush or Obama Administration, or if it’s a high profile foreign national. This is a clear abuse of civil liberties and lack of due diligence from the bureaucratic side of government. It’s not SRK who should be intimidated. It’s the lazy, ignorant, unionized employee who should be threatened. It is time to kick to the curb the incompetent. In a recession full of qualified people, there are many who can do the job of a US border official far better.

"I remember my own experience with an incident involving the famous Indian Star Kamal Haasan. He was shooting with us in Toronto in April 2002 for a Tamil film called “Pantchathathiram”.  After commencing the film's shoot here, he was on his way to way to LA to do prosthetic make-up. He was detained when he was interviewed by US custom officials here for hours and denied a visa to the US. A very similar incident like Shahrukh’s, things haven’t changed in 7 years,  involving another Indian heartthrob, Aamir Khan's similar experience a month before Haasan at Chicago airport. He was apparently strip searched and detained." said film maker and human Rights activist Roger Nair.

Michael Kapoustin who recently returned from a 12 year wrongful detention in Bulgaria to Canada only after PM Stephen Harper intervened, says of the Khan incident echoing Mr. Nair: "Each year thousands more tourists join the silent ranks of those terrorized by the racial profiling practiced by western immigration and police. And not even a black U.S. president apologizing for the racial profiling and wrongful arrest of Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. can change that...I spent 3 years in solitary confinement being beaten and intimidated. The Nazi’s relied on name, color and religion to decide who had a right to live and who did not. As a Jew I am sensitive to anything that determines a person’s character by virtue of his name, color or religion. My father and grandparents survived the holocaust. Defending against terrorism should rely on good intelligence, not on xenophobia."

To read more on what Michael has to say Click on this.
http://www.humanrightscanada.net/pb/wp_771b97c0/wp_771b97c0.html

"Canada is not completely immune to this ignorance but things are still much calmer here and the dignitaries are given their just and due respect in most cases. My personal experience with Canadian immigration while handling Aishwarya, Abhishek, A.R. Rahman, Maniratnam, Madhavan and countless other film stars have been very positive so much so that they all have been given special treatment when pre-informed and my friend Silambarasan,  can really vouch for that when as soon as the immigration found out about his celebrity status (and the fact that there were about a thousand people waiting at the airport terminal) they were extra nice and helped him with every possible thing they could."

Nair continued: “Its time when the ignorance is replaced by intelligence especially where it counts, at the door of United States, at their airports etc.”

Roger Nair is a film maker and human rights activist who is responsible for numerous film productions and a big influence on world conflict resolution that has included Srilanka, Pakistan and Kosovo.