Fingerprinted! Again!

Arrived in Iran for a few days and before the immigration officer would stamp my American passport he waved me to follow him for the usual little extra formality: Fingerprinting.

My arrival at Khomeini International Airport

Nope, I've never committed a crime here. Iranian officials routinely complain about what I and other foreign journalists write about the country's politics, but I can't recall ever having a serious personal incident in all my years of traveling here.

The Iranians started fingerprinting American journalists a few years ago. You don't see that many other Americans coming to Iran, except for Iranian-Americans who are required to use their Iranian passports for entry. The move seemed to be mainly a response to the U.S. government's decision to start printing Middle Easterners arriving in the U.S.--including those of course with valid visas. This is part of the U.S.'s terrorist catching effort, and it's been extended to include just about everyone visiting the U.S. Homeland Security says the program, sweetly called US-VISIT, for "United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology" (Orwell would not be surprised!), has achieved "unprecedented results." By the way, the U.S. doesn't even call it fingerprinting. Homeland Security says its the "collection of biometric and biographic data."

Iranians probably targeted American journalists because they are upset at the hassles their journalists get from U.S. authorities. Many are blocked from entering, but even when they are given visas, stupid restrictions are placed on them limiting their travels to, say, a small radius around New York City. I say "stupid" because, if they are deemed security threats, don't let them into the U.S. in the first place! Guess the idea is to let them in then treat them like enemies. At least the U.S. fingerprinting is done with sophisticated inkless technology. It takes about a day for the purple to completely disappear from my fingers.

For what it's worth, the Iranians seem embarrassed by what they are doing. In the half dozen times I've been fingerprinted, the immigration officer has never failed to apologize and roll his eyes in the air as if to say, "Crazy politicians! Crazy America! Crazy Iran!"

Well put. We had a good laugh and shook hands good-bye, though I was careful not to smear any ink on his palm doing that. I also find myself agreeing with President Ahmadinejad, who strongly opposed a move by Iran's conservative-controlled parliament to extend the fingerprinting to include ALL American visitors. He called the practice, at least as implemented by the U.S., "an insult to human dignity and benevolence which is very similar to ‎medieval practices that belongs to a bygone era."

--By Scott MacLeod/Tehran
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