04-07-2005, 09:36 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Denied frisk-free entry, irate Somnath cancels Australia visit </b>
Pioneer News Service/ New Delhi
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has cancelled his visit to Australia for a meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary executives, scheduled to be held next week, after Melbourne refused to accept the Centre's request of exempting him from being physically frisked at the airport.
Mr Chatterjee, currently in Manila attending the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference, is said to have taken strong exception to the Australian Govern-ment's refusal to grant him passage without the personal search.
An aide of the Speaker told The Pioneer over telephone from the Phillipines capital on Thursday that Mr Chatterjee viewed this as an insult to the world's largest democracy and that he was shocked that one of the country's chief parliamentary presiding officers should be snubbed in this fashion.
Quoting Mr Chatterjee as saying <b>"My country's prestige is at stake and I do not want to compromise on it. I would prefer not to go", </b>the aide said: "The Speaker's contention is that when parliamentary delegates of other countries are allowed frisk-free entry through Indian airports why should he be subjected to such an exercise."
After taking over as the Speaker of the Lower House, Mr Chatterjee had asked the Ministry of External Affairs to ensure that whenever he is invited by the Government of another country, the Indian mission there should request an exemption from physical frisking for him.
<b>So far, Singapore, Phillipines, Malaysia, the United States and Canada have granted Mr Chatterjee the privilege of frisk-free airport passage.</b>
"If the US could consider our request even after 9/11, why can't Australia do the same?" his aide asked. The Speaker had travelled to the US and Canada in September last year.
"Unless we respect each other, how can we have good relations? It is all the more painful when a fellow Commonwealth country does this. It is very unfortunate. It is really an affront to India that some country insists on rigorous checks on its Speaker in the name of security," he quoted Mr Chatterjee as saying. Earlier, during the former NDA Government's tenure, the then Defence Minister George Fernandes had complained of being strip-searched at airport in the US. Mr Chatterjee, who is in Manila since March 31, will be back here on April 11.Â
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Pioneer News Service/ New Delhi
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has cancelled his visit to Australia for a meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary executives, scheduled to be held next week, after Melbourne refused to accept the Centre's request of exempting him from being physically frisked at the airport.
Mr Chatterjee, currently in Manila attending the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference, is said to have taken strong exception to the Australian Govern-ment's refusal to grant him passage without the personal search.
An aide of the Speaker told The Pioneer over telephone from the Phillipines capital on Thursday that Mr Chatterjee viewed this as an insult to the world's largest democracy and that he was shocked that one of the country's chief parliamentary presiding officers should be snubbed in this fashion.
Quoting Mr Chatterjee as saying <b>"My country's prestige is at stake and I do not want to compromise on it. I would prefer not to go", </b>the aide said: "The Speaker's contention is that when parliamentary delegates of other countries are allowed frisk-free entry through Indian airports why should he be subjected to such an exercise."
After taking over as the Speaker of the Lower House, Mr Chatterjee had asked the Ministry of External Affairs to ensure that whenever he is invited by the Government of another country, the Indian mission there should request an exemption from physical frisking for him.
<b>So far, Singapore, Phillipines, Malaysia, the United States and Canada have granted Mr Chatterjee the privilege of frisk-free airport passage.</b>
"If the US could consider our request even after 9/11, why can't Australia do the same?" his aide asked. The Speaker had travelled to the US and Canada in September last year.
"Unless we respect each other, how can we have good relations? It is all the more painful when a fellow Commonwealth country does this. It is very unfortunate. It is really an affront to India that some country insists on rigorous checks on its Speaker in the name of security," he quoted Mr Chatterjee as saying. Earlier, during the former NDA Government's tenure, the then Defence Minister George Fernandes had complained of being strip-searched at airport in the US. Mr Chatterjee, who is in Manila since March 31, will be back here on April 11.Â
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