Posted on 08/13/2006 7:29:23 PM PDT by aculeus
(Filed: 14/08/2006)
A five-year-old girl's passport application was rejected because her photograph showed her bare shoulders.
Hannah Edwards's mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country.
The photograph was taken at a photo-booth at a local post office for a family trip to the south of France.
Because of the way the camera was set up, the picture came out showing Hannah's shoulders.
The family had it signed and presented it at a post office with the completed form but were told that it would not be accepted by the Passport Office.
A woman behind the counter informed them that she was aware of at least two other cases where applications had been rejected because a person's shoulders were not covered.
Mrs Edwards, a Sheffield GP, said: "I was incensed. 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. Her mother and her father, Martin, realised that it was due to expire during their holiday later this month and decided to renew it advance.
They aimed to complete the application on Saturday, the same day that Hannah was to be Sheffield Wednesday football team's mascot at Hillsborough stadium. Mrs Edwards was also on call from her surgery.
After the rejection at the post office, Mrs Edwards spent two hours taking Hannah for new pictures, filling in a new form and finding the necessary "responsible citizens" to endorse the photos.
"The people who had signed the original application were not available," Mrs Edwards said. "I had to chase around and eventually found a neighbour who was a teacher to sign the pictures.
"The Passport Office should set this sort of thing out in its forms if it is going to be so pedantic."
A spokesman for the Identity and Passport Service said it was not its 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 said. "If people follow those rules there should be no problem.
"The Post Office obviously has its rules and we can't comment on that. We are aware of a case in the past where an error was made involving similar circumstances, although I don't know the exact details. Staff should be aware of the rules."
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 at the post office.
"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. It is one of our most popular services and it is normally extremely effective.
"We have a much lower rejection rate compared to applications submitted directly to the Passport Office."
Dhimmitude continues.
So Photoshop a scarf or something in.
lol.
"That child is an angel and anyone who is offended by her bare shoulders has latent pedophilia."
Latent?
. . .am guessing we may be on the same page...somewhere; but I don't understand your comment. . relative to mine, anyway.
Oh, puleeze. There's nothing wrong with the picture. Some folks need to get over themselves.
I think Sullivan reads FR for ideas.
The comment was about Muslim influence in the United States (if you're American). There hasn't been an imposition of Sharia, clothing, halal. If you are British, however, they are turning more toward Islam (apparently halal food is readily available).
The comment was about Muslim influence in the United States (if you're American). There hasn't been an imposition of Sharia, clothing, halal. If you are British, however, they are turning more toward Islam (apparently halal food is readily available).
The comment was about Muslim influence in the United States (if you're American). There hasn't been an imposition of Sharia, clothing, halal. If you are British, however, they are turning more toward Islam (apparently halal food is readily available).
Okay, so just take a black magic marker and draw in sleeves. What's the problem?
I thought it was her shirt. Those fiendish X-ray cameras!
Yeah, you can have the picture reutered.
Wow, look at those eyes. She's going to drive her daddy nuts in a couple of years when the boys come calling.
When I visited Saudi Arabia years ago I had a paperback confiscated because there was a picture of a man and a woman on the cover. There wasn't anything lurid about the book cover but they took it anyway.
Hannah Edwards's mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country.The photograph was taken at a photo-booth at a local post office for a family trip to the south of France.
To those in this world who insisted that we must hold our tongues and engage in censorship to avoid the crime of blasphemy against muslims worldwide, this is what we get.
Thanks for surrendering to your muslim masters.
The efforts to influence; to effect change- just as in Britain - are in the making; and it is not just the Muslims who are trying to influence as per CAIR or just the ACLU; but many authoriatative, PC-miinded/obsessed, Liberal Americans doing their best as well.
Stephen Hayes points out just such an effort in his critique 'Uncle Sam's Makeover/The State Department's answer to Osama Bin Laden's attempt to 'redefine America'. . .(Frontpage Magazine/06/03/02)
He begins with Charlotte Beers, who goes way beyond 'Muslim Outreach' in her efforts. . .
SHORTLY AFTER her confirmation as the State Department's top communications whiz last October, Charlotte Beers said she hoped to create among the world's one billion Muslims an "understanding that they don't need to kill us to get our attention." [. . .]
Beers, a top Madison Avenue advertising executive handpicked by Colin Powell to serve as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, summed up her task in an interview last fall with the Wall Street Journal. "It is almost as though we have to redefine what America is," she said. "This is the most sophisticated brand assignment I have ever had."
While much of this is supposedly no more than good Muslim PR; it goes well beyond. . .and where our State Department and CAIR and the ACLU. . .and Political Correctness end. . .there will be Sharia Law Centers just waiting to open their doors in America. . .
And who knows, maybe next week we will hear of new criteria being set for what may be the more 'appropriate' Passport photo. . .
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