Passport photo of girl, 5, banned in case it offends Muslims

[SO19]

Passport photo of girl, 5, banned 'in case it offends Muslims'
09:55am 15th August 2006


Hannah Edwards: This is the picture the local post office rejected.

A five-year-old girl had her passport form rejected when an official said the bare shoulders on her photograph could offend Muslims.

The post office assistant stunned Hannah Edwards's parents by claiming the skin exposed by her daughter's halter-neck dress would not be accepted by the Passport Office as it might prove unacceptable in a Muslim country.

The incident happened when Jane and Martin Edwards took the picture, which was taken in a photo-booth, to a post office in the Sheffield area along with the completed form for checking ahead of a family holiday in the South of France.

The counter clerk told them she was aware of at least two other cases where applications had been rejected because a person's shoulders were not covered in their photo.

Mrs Edwards, a GP in Sheffield, had to rush around for two hours getting new pictures taken and countersigned.

'I was incensed,' she said yesterday. 'I went back home and checked the form.

'Nowhere did it say anything about covering up shoulders. If it had, I would have done so, but it all seems so unnecessary.

'This is quite ridiculous, I followed the instructions on the passport form to the letter and it was still rejected. It is just officialdom pandering to political correctness.

'It is a total over-reaction. How can the shoulders of a five-year-old girl offend anyone?

'It's not as if anything else was showing. The dress she wore was sleeveless but it has a high neck.'

Hannah had her first passport when she was three months old but her mother and father realised it was due to expire during their holiday this month. They aimed to complete the application on Saturday, the day Hannah was to be Sheffield Wednesday's mascot at their Hillsborough football stadium.

Mrs Edwards said she was also on call from her surgery when she had to spend time having the picture retaken.

'The referees who had signed the original application were not available,' she said. 'I had to chase around and eventually found a neighbour who was a teacher to sign the pictures.'

A spokesman for the Passport Service said it was not policy to reject applications with bare shoulders.

'The guidance set out on the application form doesn't include it, this picture should have been absolutely fine,' she added. 'The Post Office has its rules and we can't comment on that.'

A Post Office spokesman said: 'Our offices have a Passport Office template which says what the photograph should and shouldn't be.

'Bare shoulders don't come into that at all. We can't see any instruction to that effect so all we can do is apologise to Mrs Edwards. It was clearly a mistake made by the clerk.

'It is the first time we have heard of such a rejection and we will take it up with that particular office.

'We do around three million passport applications a year and have a much lower rejection rate than the forms submitted directly to the Passport Office.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770

[SO19]

Words fail me, they really do... whats happening ?

[Daka]

There are a lot of really stupid regulations regarding passport photos.

To be honest, I think this is a case of the home office putting a regulation up without thinking.

I'm sure nothing would come of it in a muslim country (at least the ones you'd want to visit) and i belive it is probably a "just in case scenario" which has been created to save them trouble should you find yourself in dubai or somewhere without a valid pass port.

examples of stupid regulations:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3541444.stm

Heres an article with the list of regulations:

http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/article ... _2,00.html

note:
Must show a close-up of your head and shoulders — face must cover 65 to 75 per cent of the photograph.

it could be the case that the full rejection was to do with this criteria as well and that the mail is being sensationalistic. It has been known to happen.

On the other hand, i could be wrong. To be honest, some newspapers i just dont trust at all

[HarryAVFC]

WTF. this stuff is really starting to pi55 me off.

No wonder people are racist .

[exgreenjacket]

i wonder how many muslims would really be offended by it though . . . .

[Alfa]

It depends what countries you go to really.

If you went to the obvious tourist/moderate countries you wouldn't have a problem but there's a lot of muslim countries that would kick up a stink about it, as it is actually highly offensive to "strict" muslims for women not to be covered up. I know this first hand as in my old job I dealt with a lot of foreign muslims, it's the way they've been brought up and what they've been taught is acceptable.

It could be a case of over reaction or as has already been said it could be "sensationalism" or a bit of both.

[Tam527]

I reckon this was just blind stupidity , borne of ignorance and paranoia.
To what degree do we take 'being offensive to muslims' to.

[Alfa]

I totally understand your point and know where your coming from and I agree with you. However in terms of passports you have to make sure they are acceptable to travel with to ANY country you may need to and this involves ensuring they're acceptable in all countries so that your not refused entry.

[Brian-]

Why should they refuse a girl entry for showing her shoulders? How about they respect our bloody culture for a change?

Why does the UK have an obsession with trying to keep everyone else happy? Turning into a bit of a doormat nation it seems.

[Alfa]

Because as with everything else "respect" is never a two way thing, 1 rule for them and a different one for everyone else. Just look at all the fuss over those cartoons of mohammed apparently that was a disgusting thing to do etc.... yet Iran have just launched a competition to find cartoons mocking the holocaust

[Tam527]

I am just concerned with the fact that, where before there was some semblance of respect, there is now anger, fear and distrust. And all because of the actions of a very few people on the world stage.
This particular case is an example of how this kind of intolerance can breed, to the point where we forego everything that allows us to be a human being.

[Paratrooper01]

A five-year-old girl had her passport form rejected when an official said the bare shoulders on her photograph could offend Muslims.

It offends me to see Muslims walking round in dish dashes with long black beards and turbans in the UK.

It offends me to see Mosques in our towns and cities.

It offends me when muslim communities come together in London holding banners and chanting words to the effect, "Kill all westerners".

However, i have to put up with it.

Get a grip i say, and pull your heads out of your arses for the first time and realise that there is more to your life than Islam.

[Banch]

unfortunatley I live in a predominantly muslim area and I have to admit there is nothing I enjoy more than making my way through the town drunk as fcuk during the summer months preferably accompanied by a bird wearing the shortest of skirts and most revealing of tops!!
I fully agree with the comments made by paratrooper01. I have to endure their ridiculous clothes and beards and the foul cooking smells polluting the air from their businesses and homes and their disrespectful use of whatever language it is they speak.
For generations my family have lived in the area I currently reside in, myself for 25 years and I can firmly say I am now a complete outcast, So don't dare any of them talk about segregation etc, it is they that cause it!!
I am sick of these unsightly mosques and why do they have to have the barstard speaker on so loud when calling to prayer, If that was my stereo I would be done for making excessive noise, but again just another minute example of how it is one rule for them and one for everbody else. Anyway getting to the point of the thread, when I next renew my passport will I have to grow a beard??

[Paratrooper01]

Its almost a case of, we cant do anything anymore in case it upsets everyone else. But what about the original population of this country, do we not have rights aswell??? It seems not.

Banch i agree with you mate. Women in this country all walk around without their faces covered...does this not offend Muslims?

[harry hackedoff]

It`s a hard one isn`t it?
Where we draw the line? Secular Muslims I have met and come to know, are great people really. Trust me on this, they are.
Assimilation is the issue as I see it. Move to England for whatever reason, as countless hordes have done in the past, and become English as soon as you can. Worked a treat for the Normans, the Romans The Lithuanian Jews the Angles, their mates the Saxons, Huegenots, Poles those fat Danes etc etc. and especially the Irish.
What`s different here is the way this group see themselves as alienated from that process of assimilation from the moment they arrive in UK.

Down here we have a former head of a certain Police Organisation saying what total bollocks it is for UK airports to subject ALL travelers to the same scrutinys when it`s the Muslims who are the threat. Very reasoned arguements about a seventy six year old from Toowoomba being subjected to security protocols designed to catch a twenty year old suicide bomber from Bradford, via Pakistan.
Dunno what the answer is but down here, I`m the immigrant. I`m the new kid in town. It`s been a revelation to me and it`s altered the way I see the issue.
Remember that I`m in my fifties, I grew up in an England where there were no Asians. None. There were a few Africans and Jamaicans in Liverpool and they`d been there for a few hundred years, plus the biggest Chinese community outside mainland China besides Honkers. But no Asians.
For whatever reason, and I`m furked if I can find one that makes sense, the floodgates to unlimited Asian immigration were opened and resentment began. Enoch was correct in his rivers of blood speech and I can tell you he, most deffo, was not a racist, he was stating the facts as they would become.