Jewell House
180 Goderich Street
Perth WA 6000
Tel: (08) 9325 8488
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
Letters to the Editor
WA Newspapers
Private Bag 54
GPO Perth 6001
Fax: 9482 3830
Email: letters@wanews.com.au
Web site: http://www.thewest.com.au
Dear Sir,
Could I respectfully suggest that you might get more tourist visitors
to your country if you humiliated and degraded us less at Perth airport.
I am a male visitor aged 55 from England and have enjoyed the many sights
and sounds of Perth on previous visits.
On Monday evening I arrived on a flight from Singapore and was stopped and
searched for drugs while passing through the green channel.
My crime was to have "given indications", presumably returning the leer
from the grinning plain clothes man as I collected my bag off the carousel.
A man called Ian found a pair of my girlfriends nickers,
which she had given me, in my suitcase and then suggested
that my underpants were a bra, with a jeering half smile.
I was asked whether I used drugs or had ever taken drugs.
A sniffing probe was then inserted into my bag of washing things
and passed over my laptop computer.
A tube of teeth whitening gel, given me by a dentist in Perth,
was then removed for examination, since it was shaped like a syringe.
My bank passbook was also inspected.
I was then taken to an interview room
where they then insisted on viewing my laptop computer to find any
evidence of child pornography or bestiality.
I was then spoken to by an immigration official in an unpleasant manner
to determine whether I was a bona fide tourist.
I was asked whether I was working.
Having amused themselves sufficiently they then let me go.
I will not be visiting your country again or spending any
of my travelers cheques in your country.
Yours sincerely
JOHN BLACK
Email:johndevblack@yahoo.com