[pdftex] A Request from TUG: Sharing Your Corners of the Field [ pdfTeX ]

[Martin Schroeder]

On 2003-04-16 17:42:12 +0200, Martin Schröder wrote:
> On 2003-04-16 17:11:14 +0200, Hans Hagen wrote:
> > lack of visum; on previous occasions thanh had no problem, but gigen todays 
> > more strick regulations ... i dunno about korea, but china has given 
> 
> A nightmare story from a german journalist who wanted to travel
> _via_ the USA:
> http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/co/14583/1.html (german
> only; babelfish version here:
> http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr?tt=url&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Ftp%2Fdeutsch%2Finhalt%2Fco%2F14583%2F1.html&lp=de_en)

I've been asked to summarize the story for those of you who can't
use the babelfish.

Two german journalist wanted to travel to Caracas (Venezuela) on
2003-04-04 and had to switch planes (transit) in Miami. Despite
them being in transit, their passports were checked by US
_immigration_ officers, who found a visa for Iraq (they are
journalists and had worked there recently), which highly alarmed
him (although the journalists were legally in the Iraq and
thousands of US citizens are now illegally in the Iraq)

The journalists where detained and questioned for hours. "Have
you met Saddam Hussein?" was a _serious_ question.  Their
journalist status was ignored as was a request for a lawyer.
Only 24 hours later were they allowed to call their consul. They
were put into a flight to London (after 24++ hours; they would
have left via Caracas after 2 hours). 

When questioned for legal grounds, the immigration officers
replied: "We are in charge and do what we want".

Land of the free, indeed.

Best regards
        Martin
-- 
               Martin Schröder, MS at ArtCom-GmbH.DE
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