A passport story

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.

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.

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"It was clearly a mistake made by the clerk". I do actually believe that.

And I think, that a Muslim should be horrified by that. Terrorists are slowly reaching their goal. To this clerk, "a Muslim country" already is a place where you can be killed people can be offended because of bare shoulders of your five year old girl.

And when I read the speech of Syrian dictator Assad I feel exactly like the clerk. Assad calls what Hezbollah did to Israel and Lebanon a "victory". Worse - I am sure that he actually thinks about that as a victory.

Do these guys realize what a truly scared nation can do? I doubt it.

( full text of the article )