Security inspections begin in Finnish harbours

Helsinki to make random checks on passengers

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By Lasse Kerkelä
     
      It is ten minutes to the departure of the high-speed passenger and car ferry Autoexpress to Tallinn, when the gate opens and the passengers start moving toward the catamaran. A woman dressed in black walks into the middle of the crowd and asks Marja Salo of Rauma to go behind a nearby screen.
      Behind the screen two other people in dark uniforms are seen; Salo realises that she is in the middle of a hunt for maritime terrorists at Helsinki’s West Terminal.
     
The inspector examines the contents of Salo’s bag, and a man runs a hand-held metal detector over her.
      No bombs, firearms, or knives are found in the possession of any of the four passengers that the inspectors examine.
      “From the point of view of the other passengers it is absolutely right that inspections are held”, Marja Salo says after the inspection is over.
     
From July, the International Maritime Organisation has required that spot checks be held in international passenger transport.
      The IMO timetable was tight, and Finnish harbours were not able to start their inspections immediately at the beginning of July.
      Security inspections of one kind or another are now being held in Helsinki, Turku, Vaasa, and Mariehamn. In Hanko, they will start at the end of the year.
      There are considerable differences in procedures in different harbours.
      The Port of Helsinki buys its services from Airpro, a company owned by the Civil Aviation Administration. The first such inspections took place on September 20th.
      According to Olli Kunnala, a security expert at the Port of Helsinki, passenger inspections take place “almost daily”.
     
At Turku Harbour, the inspections are jointly operated by the port authority and the shipping lines. The only inspections so far took place on September 27th, and the next one is expected some time soon.
      "Staff has now been trained, which means that inspections can be held more frequently", says Timo Laitinen, head of security at the Port of Turku.
     
Lars Holmqvist, director of the Port of Vaasa, says that inspections have begun at the harbour, and that they are being carried out by customs officials. The procedure in Vaasa seems to differ from that in Helsinki and Turku; instead of spot checks, the inspectors in Vaasa focus their attention on passengers whom they think look suspicious.
      "I don’t believe that people have been inspected in Helsinki who are not suspicious."
      In fact, Olli Kunnala at the Port of Helsinki emphasises that passengers really are chosen for inspection in Helsinki on a truly random basis, and not, for instance, "on the basis of their ethnic background or political opinions".
      Kunnala adds that this is also an IMO requirement.
     
Kunnala says that starting from scratch has been difficult. The harbours have not been given instructions on how large a proportion of passengers are to be inspected, and what kinds of objects or substances are allowed on board.
      The Airpro inspectors have confiscated a few illegal spray cans, and used syringes because of the risk of AIDS. Legal, but dangerous objects are handed over to the shipping line, which keeps them in a safe place and gives them back to the passenger at the end of the journey.
     
Helsingin Sanomat First published in print 21.10.2004

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: Finnish Maritime Administration reviews security measures

LASSE KERKELÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
lasse.kerkela@hs.fi