STRIP SEARCH SPURS HUMAN RIGHTS CLAIM

Woman Alleges Racial Profiling

The Ottawa woman who was strip-searched at the Ottawa Airport after
returning from her grandmother's funeral in Jamaica has decided to
launch a human rights complaint.

Charmaine Archer, 42, who holds dual citizenship with Jamaica, said
Sunday she wants to know what her rights are, make sure people
understand what happened, and ensure no one else goes through the
humiliation she did.

She has contacted the Canadian Human Rights Commission and expects to
hear back within the week to begin filing an official complaint.

Hillary Williams, counsellor of the Jamaican High Commission in
Ottawa, has advised Archer to compose a letter that includes the
details of what happened, her feelings, and what she hopes to achieve
by filing a complaint.

Archer said she will send the letter this morning.

She hopes her complaint will result in an investigation to prove that
the report that traces of heroin and THC, the active ingredient in
marijuana, were found on her toothbrush was fabricated to justify the
strip search.

Archer said Canadian customs agents told her she was being flagged
because she had purchased her ticket to Jamaica at the last minute
and had stayed only four days.

Instead, she believes she was flagged because of her race and country
of origin.

"I was the only black person on that flight and I was the only one in
there being searched," she said, of the flight from Philadelphia to
Ottawa, the final leg of her trip home from Jamaica. "I have all
reason to assume it was racial profiling."

After being taken aside, she said she was compliant with the guards
up until they told her she must submit to a strip search or be
arrested. "Arrest me then," she said she told them, but was taken in
to be searched regardless.

She said another goal in making a human rights complaint is to have
the surveillance videos made public to show that she had done all
that was asked of her up until she was told she would be searched.

"I have nothing to hide," she said, adding that the contents of the
video taken during the search should be made public to help people
understand her complaint.

Three female guards were present when Archer was asked to remove all
of her clothing and bend forward so that a guard could search her
body. "It was humiliating," she said. "Are you telling me you can't
conduct a strip search in a less degrading way?"

She said she thinks there was no reason for her search to go as far as it did.

Despite the reported traces on her toothbrush, Archer says the search
should have stopped when no other evidence of drugs was found among
her belongings.

She said the guards at the airport displayed "a total overuse of
power. There was no reason for such excessive force."