Pakistan advised to fingerprint Americans

Staff Report

WASHINGTON: Pakistan should follow the Brazilian example and start fingerprinting and photographing all arriving Americans, a community leader has proposed.

The community leader, who did not wish to be identified, such is the atmosphere of intimidation which many Pakistanis have experienced here since 9/11, said one way the Bush administration can be made to realise what humiliation Pakistani travellers to the United States suffer on arrival is to “give visiting Americans a dose of the same medicine”. Brazil has shown the way and we should follow, he said.

A report from the South American country cites an announcement by a Brazilian judge that US citizens will be fingerprinted and photographed on entering the country. Federal Judge Julier Sebastiao da Silva was reacting to US plans to require the same of Brazilians entering the US. He issued the order after a Brazilian government office filed a complaint in a federal court over the new US immigration measures.

From 5 January, travellers from all countries which need a visa to enter the US will undergo the same checks. “I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis,” the Brazilian judge said in the court order, according to a BBC report monitored here.

The new security measures will come into effect on January 1 unless the judge’s ruling is challenged by the government.

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