Pubdate: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2009 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Sarah Anderson 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." - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart