There has been much debate, in these columns, about the high incidence of body searches conducted by Customs officers on selected passengers arriving at Hong Kong Airport.
As long as such searches are conducted in a civilised and polite manner, with strict adherence to the law, we have to accept them as a hard fact of life.
They happen in airports all over the world, with different groups of people being singled out. For example, Colombians arriving in New York, Florida and Toronto are often searched, as are Southeast Asian arrivals at European Union ports. Chinese and Indonesian arrivals to northern Australia get special attention, because of the problem of illegal immigration. The list is endless.
Your correspondent Sabeena Subba (letter headlined, 'Disgusted by 'blatant discrimination' at Customs', South China Morning Post, March 16) was not being entirely fair when, with relation to Customs officers, she talked about the 'demons' in the ranks, who seemed to take joy in practising racial discrimination against the Nepalese at every opportunity. When Ms Subba was asked to submit to a body search she accused the officer concerned of showing discrimination. Surely, she was being biased and this was bound to lead to confrontation.
Perhaps the Customs and Excise Department had reliable intelligence reports that someone of Nepalese descent on board Ms Subba's flight might be in possession of illegal items and this hapless lady officer was only discharging her duty by searching passengers from that flight.
Ms Subba says she was standing up for her rights, but what right did she have to accuse someone of 'blatant racism' without having any reasonable grounds for such an accusation, other than her own suspicions? JOHN HO Tai Hang