After the Christmas Day bombing attempt in Detroit by a Muslim suspect from Nigeria, some have called for the use of full body scanners at airports to find explosives and other dangerous materials carried by terrorists. The Fiqh Council of North America, a body of Islamic scholars, decided to issue a religious ruling this week that says going through the airport scanners would violate Islamic rules on modesty. According to Muslim groups the scanners go against their religion and therefore indirectly affect their freedom.
This decision to issue a ruling could complicate efforts to intensify screening of potential terrorists who are Muslim. Some airports are now in the process of buying and using the full body scanners, which show in graphic detail the outlines of a person's body. However the airports have to do their duty with respect to transfer people safely from one destination to another. Should airports give religious people in general the option to go through a full body scanner and risk the safety of other passengers?
In my opinion, religious people should not be given any privilege. First of all, in Western society every single human should be treated equally, despite your religion. Furthermore, one of the main tasks and duties of airports is to transfer people safely. Of course they cannot give a 100% safety guarantee, but at least they can limit potential threats to the fullest by exposing every single human to a full body scanner. If one potential terrorist is eliminated by this scanner it is already beneficial for the entire society. It is often hard to say if safety can overrule religion or vice versa.
s100815
1 comment:
Safety can overrule religion. It clashes only if you are religious, and, in this case Muslim. Then such person’s religious feelings would most probably be violated. But unfortunately as we live in well-organized society and such extreme religious views seem to stem from less organized societies, it looks that we should give safety priority. In the end we all want to arrive at our destination safely. It could be even crueler stating that if safety rule violates your religious views, try to find another way of getting to your target place. On the other hand if it is only a scanner, there is no touching involved and such scan is not going to be used against any person (unless being a thread to passenger’s safety, of course), and a scanning person is a qualified employee, does it really violate any religious views?
S938339
Post a Comment