Middle East & Africa | Where security is a misnomer

How airports explain the Arab world

Getting on a plane in the region is an exhausting—and revealing—process

|BEIRUT

IN MOST AIRPORTS, going through security checks is a streamlined if soulless passage into a hermetically sealed, sanitised zone. Not so in much of the Arab world. Reaching your departure lounge is a mental as well as physical obstacle course which reveals much about the regime—or regimes—in charge.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Safety last”

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From the June 29th 2019 edition

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