DNSI Blog

Court orders UPS to pay Jersey City man for religious discrimination

2009-01-30T20:41:00.001-05:00

30 Jan - USA:

A federal jury in Trenton ordered United Parcel Service to pay $10,000 to a Jersey City man who was denied a job because his Rastafarian religious beliefs forbid him from shaving his beard.

The suit, filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, charged that the Atlanta-based company discriminated against Roniss Mason, 31, by failing to make an exception to its "appearance guidelines" to accommodate his religious beliefs. He had applied in 2004 for a job as a driver's assistant.

Michael Ranis, a lawyer for the Employment Opportunity Commission, said Thursday's verdict could have broad impact for religious men, including Muslims, Sikhs and Orthadox (sic) Jews.

Link

RCMP recruit wins support

2009-01-28T08:57:00.000-05:00

27 Jan - Canada:

The Canadian Race Relations Foundation has lent its support to an ex-RCMP recruit who successfully argued before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that discrimination prevented him from finishing his Mountie training.

Iranian-born Muslim Ali Tahmourpour, 36, appeared with several anti-racism leaders yesterday in a press conference at the CRRF's Yonge St. and Hwy. 401 offices.

After starting training with the Mounties in July 1999, he was dismissed in October of that year because he failed to meet training standards, according to the Mounties. But the rights tribunal felt otherwise, and ruled "the RCMP's discriminatory conduct caused Mr. Tahmourpour to lose the opportunity to develop and demonstrate, in his full potential, the necessary skills to become an RCMP officer."

[...]

Tahmourpour (who declined to comment yesterday) contended at the 2007 tribunal hearing that the RCMP of subjecting him to discrimination during training, including claims he was singled out for wearing a religious pendant and ridiculed for signing his name to documents in Persian.

Link

Hard hat vs turban battle goes to hearing

2009-01-26T18:30:00.001-05:00

26 Jan - Toronto, Canada:

A Sikh security guard who was asked to trade in his turban for a hard hat at a Milton Home Depot will have his case heard before the Human Rights tribunal today.

Deepinder Loomba has been fighting the hardware franchise for almost four years after a supervisor at a Home Depot construction site asked Loomba to wear a hard hat.

Link

EEOC and UNITED SIKHS Settle Lawsuit Against Security Firm in Employment Discrimination Case

2009-01-23T14:11:00.001-05:00

23 Jan - Texas, USA:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), assisted by UNITED SIKHS, settled an employment discrimination case earlier this week against Champion National Security, a security firm that discriminated against Sukhdev Singh Brar.

The EEOC sought compensatory and punitive damages when filing the employment discrimination action against the security company, after numerous consultations with UNITED SIKHS to understand the importance of kesh (unshorn hair) covered by a dastaar (Sikh turban) as one of the five articles of faith Sikhs are required to wear as an inherent practice of the Sikh faith. Champion National Security settled the case, acknowledging the discriminatory policy and agreeing to a written change in company policy with continued Sikh awareness training, to be provided by UNITED SIKHS. Champion National Security will also post anti-discrimination notices on all employee bulletin boards and compensate Sukhdev Singh $24,000.

Link

'It was racial,' says attack vic

2009-01-20T08:44:00.001-05:00

20 Jan - New York:

A 21-year-old Sikh man was viciously beaten and stabbed in his left eye in Queens by three men who, he said Monday night, taunted him for his traditional beard and pulled his long hair.

Jasmir Singh of Richmond Hill was hanging out with a friend near a Jackson Heights grocery store about 4:49 a.m. Sunday when the men began hurling insults at the pair.

Singh, who is being treated at Elmhurst Hospital Center, claimed the attackers singled him out because of his long hair and traditional Sikh beard.

Link

Groups say veil ban unlawful, unfairly targets Muslims

2009-01-15T10:11:00.001-05:00

15 Jan - Australia:

SHOPKEEPERS are demanding sunglasses, baseball caps and religious face veils be banned to guard against criminals trying to hide their identities.

The Queensland Retailers Association yesterday declared its members should have the right to ban customers from wearing any clothing that obscured faces.

But the proposed ban has outraged civil libertarians, Islamic groups and Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Commission. They say the move would be unlawful and unfairly target Muslims and teenagers.

Link

IRS Kirpan Case Heads to Federal Court

2009-01-09T00:15:00.003-05:00

8 Jan - USA:

The Sikh Coalition filed suit against the federal government this week to protect a Sikh employee's right to wear her kirpan to work. The lawsuit alleges that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Protective Service (FPS) discriminated against Kawaljeet Kaur Tagore by prohibiting her from carrying a kirpan, a mandatory article of faith, on her job as a revenue agent at the Mickey Leland Federal Building in downtown Houston. Ms. Tagore was fired from her job in July 2006 because she refused to remove her kirpan.

"Sikhs should be entitled to work for their government, just like other Americans. In this case, the government put Ms. Tagore in the unacceptable position of choosing between her religion and her job." said Harsimran Kaur, the Sikh Coalition's Legal Director.

The lawsuit claims that the government's conduct violated both the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) and Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. It alleges that the FPS and IRS banned the
kirpan as a so-called "dangerous weapon," even though the government
allows hundreds of sharp knives and box cutters in the Leland
Building. Government officials banned Tagore's kirpan sight unseen,
failing to conduct any examination whatsoever of the kirpan before
banning it outright.

Link

SALDEF and Pearson VUE Join Together To Increase Diversity Awareness

2009-01-09T00:12:00.002-05:00

7 Jan - USA:

The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), the oldest and largest Sikh American civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, is
collaborating with the international computer-based testing business of Pearson VUE, to increase diversity awareness and service to minority communities.

In a mutual effort to increase understanding of minority communities in the United States and abroad, SALDEF is working with Pearson VUE to disseminate information about Sikhs and Sikh American cultural practices. Additionally, SALDEF will be invited to conduct Sikhism 101 trainings for Pearson VUE employees at regional seminars Pearson VUE will host across the United States.

In follow up to discussions with SALDEF, Pearson VUE reaffirms its support of Sikh patrons choosing to maintain religious accoutrements such as the daastar (turban) and kara (steel bracelet). Additionally, Pearson VUE and SALDEF acknowledged that Sikhs may undergo further scrutiny due to their kirpan (religious sword). As a result, an understanding was developed and adopted by Pearson VUE to foster an appreciation of Sikh cultural practices.

"The communication and equal partnership between SALDEF and Pearson VUE is unmatched by any other company in the United States." said SALDEF National Director Rajbir Singh Datta. "The more Corporate America works with members of minority communities, the better their services will be received and the more aware society will become about the issues facing these communities. We look forward to working with Pearson VUE in the future and providing ongoing training and
information on Sikhs and Sikhism."

Link

Bellerose man injured in hate attack

2009-01-08T11:21:00.000-05:00

7 Jan - New Tork, USA:

For Bellerose resident Balbir Singh, New Year’s Eve was not a time of celebration.

After a violent attack outside his home on 248th Street in Bellerose that left blood gushing from his right eye, Balbir Singh, 40, spent nearly nine hours on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center.

The man, whom Community Board 13 member Swaranjit Singh said was the victim of a hate crime because he is a Sikh, cannot go back to work as a taxi driver for at least a week as the result of the injuries he sustained during the attack. He suffered a fracture in his right eye socket.

[...]

Swaranjit Singh, who is running for the 23rd City Council District seat, now held by Councilman David Weprin (D-Hollis), said the event was one of several attacks, verbal and physical, that Sikhs have suffered in the neighborhood. The community board member said Sikhs, some of whom wear turbans on their heads, are often mistaken for Muslims and have been especially targeted after Sept. 11, 2001.

Link

240,000 dollars awarded to man forced to cover Arab T-shirt

2009-01-06T10:38:00.001-05:00

6 Jan - USA:

NEW YORK (AFP) – An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded 240,000 dollars in compensation, campaigners said Monday.

Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York's JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.

"The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling," said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.

Link

Muslims find it safest in city schools

2009-01-05T12:03:00.002-05:00

4 Jan - USA:

Although more than one in three Muslim students said they had been hit with ethnic slurs in the past year, only one in six said it happened in school.

More than 600 students from 90 public schools participated in the three-year study conducted by Columbia University's Teachers College.

Most of the Muslim students said that although they still face bias, it has gotten better since the first few years following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Still, 36% of the students said they a faced at least one "discriminatory verbal incident" in the past year.

The study found 28% of Muslim students said they or a relative have been stopped by police as a result of "racial profiling," 12% reported they or a relative had been turned down for a job based on discrimination, 11% had property destroyed and 7% said they or a family member had been physically assaulted.

Link

'Safest' seat remarks get Muslim family kicked off plane

2009-01-02T11:23:00.001-05:00

2 Jan - USA:

A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing.

Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.
Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was "impressed with the professionalism" of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

Link

Merrill Lynch To Pay $1.6 Million To Settle Job-Bias Suit

2008-12-31T14:08:00.002-05:00

31 Dec - USA:

Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) has agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle a discrimination lawsuit that alleged an employee was let go from the company because he is Muslim and Iranian, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Wednesday.

The lawsuit filed by the EEOC alleged that the investment bank failed to promote Majid Borumand, a quantitative analyst in its Model Development Group, in August 2005 and ultimately terminated him because of his national origin and religion.

[...]

The lawsuit alleged that while working at Merrill, Borumand was subjected to a number of hostile remarks, including being told that "the reason that you are not allowed on the trading floor is because you are from a country which has a high risk factor and (is) a threat."

Link

UPS apologizes for 'terrorist' remark

2008-12-24T09:16:00.004-05:00

23 Dec - California, USA:

A Bakersfield family says they were discriminated against by a UPS driver. Their neighbor e-mailed 17 News after he says the driver wrote a derogatory term on a tracking slip while dropping off a package.

Anant Singh says his father is a member of the Sikh religion and wears a turban. When his father signed for a UPS package last week, the driver asked for his signature as usual, the younger Singh said.

But the family calls what they found on the tracking slip days later both hurtful and upsetting.

“I just happened to see it said signed by the word "terrorist." So I was amazed. I printed the paper and read it again, and it said signed by a "terrorist," Singh explained.

Link

Turkish trainer protests religious discrimination

2008-12-19T11:10:00.001-05:00

19 Dec - Romania:

The Turkish physical trainer of Steaua Bucharest has protested to FIFA after he was fired because he's a Muslim.

Steaua owner Gigi Becali fired Yuksel Yesilova on Saturday saying he brought back luck to Steaua because of his religion.

Becali said: "Steaua is a Christian team and we had bad luck because of him. I don't want to see him here. We can't keep a Muslim in a team that has a cross on its team bus and shirts."

Yesilova said Friday he had been called by FIFA officials about his firing. His contract expired in 2010.

Link

Sikh footballer told to remove turban

2008-12-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

16 Dec - Ireland:

AN under-age football club is expected to lodge an official complaint with the FAI after a 12-year-old Sikh boy was ordered to remove his turban during a game.

Karpreet Singh had worn his turban during matches without incident for four years before a problem arose during a recent schoolboy game in Co Meath. The youngster was told by the referee to remove the 'headgear' during the first half, and didn't return to the pitch for the second.

[...]

"The referee told him to remove the 'headgear'. The boy said that he couldn't expose his hair, and his teammates rallied around him."

Link

Muslim’s scarf leads to arrest at courthouse

2008-12-16T22:13:00.000-05:00

17 Dec - Atlanta, USA:

A Douglasville woman was jailed Tuesday after a judge found her in contempt of court for refusing to remove her hijab, the head covering worn by Muslim women.

Lisa Valentine, also known by her Islamic name, Miedah, 40, was arrested at the Douglasville Municipal Court for violating a court policy of no headgear, said Chris Womack, deputy chief of operations for the Douglasville Police Department.

She was taken before Judge Keith Rollins, who ordered her held in jail for 10 days. However, her husband said she was released Tuesday evening. The reason for her release wasn’t immediately clear.

Last week, the same judge apparently threw out another Muslim woman from his courtroom.

Sabreen Abdul Rahman, 55, said she had gone to court with her son when she was asked to take off her scarf. “I can’t. I’m Muslim,” she mouthed silently to the bailiff, who then removed her from the courtroom, Rahman said.

“This is a religious right,” she said. “This is unconstitutional. And humiliating.”

Link

Sikhs take turban rights case to United Nations

2008-12-16T15:55:00.000-05:00

16 Dec - Europe:

A Sikh rights group asked a U.N. human rights committee on Monday to declare that France violated a student's rights by expelling him for wearing a turban and to recommend repealing the law that led to it.
France passed a law in 2004 banning children in state primary and secondary schools from wearing conspicuous religious symbols, including Muslim headscarves, Jewish yarmulkes, large Christian crosses and Sikh turbans.

Bikramjit Singh was 18 when he was expelled from school in France in 2004 for refusing to remove his turban, according to a group called United Sikhs, which held a civil rights Conference in New York near the United Nations on Monday.

Link

SJC rules in favor of Rastafarian who alleged discrimination

2008-12-11T13:58:00.000-05:00

02 Dec - Boston:

The right of a business to control its public image doesn’t trump workers’
right to dress or groom themselves differently if they are required to do so by
their religious beliefs, the state’s highest court ruled today.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled in the case of Bobby T. Brown, a
Rastafarian who worked as technician at a Hadley Jiffy Lube owned by F.L.
Roberts & Co. Inc.

Brown’s religion doesn’t permit him to shave or cut his hair. When the
company instituted a new policy that required employees who worked with
customers to be clean-shaven, Brown was only allowed to work out of sight from
customers in the lower bay of the oil change shop, the court said in an opinion
written by Justice Roderick Ireland.

[...]

The court warned that if employers are allowed to cite their “public image”
in determining who deals with customers, they might lean toward tolerating the
religious practices of majority groups, while forbidding practices that are less
widespread.

Link

France: Graves of Muslim War Veterans Defaced

2008-12-09T22:45:00.000-05:00

08 Dec - France:

For the third time in two years, the tombs of hundreds of Muslim war veterans
were desecrated at a cemetery in northern France on Sunday night, the eve of the
Id al-Adha holiday. Swastikas and anti-Muslim slogans were spray-painted on
nearly all the 576 Muslim graves at the Notre Dame de Lorette military cemetery,
near Arras, which holds the remains of about 40,000 dead from World War I. The
last such desecration was in April. In a statement, President Nicolas Sarkozy
condemned the act as “revolting” and “an expression of repugnant racism against
France’s Muslim community.”

Link

French Headscarf Ban Not Discrimination, Says European Court

2008-12-05T10:31:00.000-05:00

05 Dec - Europe:

The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed a complaint by two French Muslim girls that their school violated their freedom of religion and their right to an education. The girls were expelled after repeatedly refusing to remove their headscarves for physical education classes.

The teacher had said that wearing a headscarf was incompatible with physical education classes. The girls, Belgin Dogru and Esma-Nur Kervanci, are French nationals and were 11 and 12 respectively when they were expelled from the school in the north-western town of Flers in 1999.

Based in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday, Dec. 4 that the school's move to expel the girls was not out of line, emphasizing that the girls had been able to continue their education via correspondence classes.

Link

Victims Claim They Got Criminal Treatment

2008-12-05T10:26:00.001-05:00

05 Dec - Houston, TX, USA:

A northwest Harris County family said they were treated like criminals after their home was burglarized, KPRC Local 2 reported Thursday.

On the night before Thanksgiving, Raman Deep Sinth said thieves broke into his family's bathroom window and ransacked his home. He said about $15,000 worth of stuff was stolen.

Sinth said he called the Harris County Sheriff's Office for help.
"That night we were actually robbed twice," Sinth said. "Once by the actual burglars, who we don't know who they were, and secondly by the sheriff's department, who we knew who they were."

He said he believes the deputies were troubled by his turban. He wears it as a member of the Sikh faith. He said he also believes the deputies were also afraid of his sister's kirpan, another religious symbol.

[...]

Sinth said soon, he, his sister, mother and another relative were in handcuffs. He said he was locked up in the back of a sheriff's cruiser.

Link

Muslim barrister wins £75,000 over 'Mother Teresa' and 'tent head' jibes

2008-12-04T10:34:00.000-05:00

03 Dec - UK:

Saleca Faisal-Parkar, 31, was harassed, overlooked for jobs and training and was even branded "lazy" after she became seriously ill while pregnant.

The abuse was led by Stephen Jones, then head of litigation at the leading law firm Shakespeares, who also referred to her as a "flipping nun".

He was also a deputy district judge and a member of the Solicitors Disciplinary Panel, but has resigned both positions in the light of the scandal.

Mrs Faisal-Parkar, who has a young daughter, joined Shakespeares in 2002 as a legal assistant.
Not long after she started, she found out from a fellow worker that she had been nicknamed "Mother Teresa" because she wore a hijab, which covers her head.

Over the course of the following months, she said Mr Jones - who made the derogatory comments in emails - harassed her, refused her training requests and potentially reduced her annual salary increase by the type of work he gave her.

Link

N.C. Mission Rejects Charity Over Turban

2008-12-03T11:12:00.000-05:00

From November 21:

A Halifax County man was turned away from a local mission when he refused to remove his turban while trying to make a donation.

Gary Khera, who is a Sikh with U.S. and Indian citizenship, went to the Union Mission this week to donate cash or food, The Daily Herald of Roanoke Rapids reported Thursday. Khera said he had previously mailed in his donations but wanted to visit the site in person.

The mission has a rule - explained in large lettering on the mission's door - asking all males to removed headcoverings inside the facility, and mission directors asked him to remove the turban. Khera refused to do so because he wears it all day as part of his religion.

Link

DNSI Welcomes Morgan Hargrave

2008-12-01T10:32:00.000-05:00

We are pleased to announce that Morgan Hargrave has joined DNSI as a research intern. A native Texan, Morgan has lived, worked, and conducted research in Argentina, Washington DC, and Jerusalem over the past few years. His work has been largely focused on inequality, public policy, and international affairs. Morgan currently lives in Austin, Texas, where he helps coordinate disaster recovery operations in the wake of Hurricane Ike. Morgan graduated from Texas Tech University with a major in International Business and a minor in Spanish. He has been continuously involved in community service projects and is interested in how societies react during times of conflict and social change.

We are lucky to have him on board!

Country's first Sikh museum opened in Derby

2008-11-25T17:14:00.000-05:00

THE first museum in the UK to be dedicated to Sikh history has opened in Derby.
Hundreds of people gathered yesterday for the official opening of the National Sikh Heritage Centre and Holocaust Museum in Pear Tree.
The £25,000-plus project is the first in the world to showcase Sikh history from the perspective of British Sikhs.
It also looks at the Sikh holocaust, in which more than a million people lost their lives because of their faith.
The idea for a national museum came from the Sikh Community Youth Service in the 1980s.

It considered venues from all over the country but chose a former factory in Derby, owned by the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara temple, because of the enthusiasm which had been shown by the city's Sikh community.
Gurmel Singh, one of the volunteers who helped to set up the museum, said he expected people from all over the world to visit the centre.
He said: "The people in Derby expressed such an appetite for this centre. All the funds have been donated by the community and they have put in a lot of time and effort to make it happen.
"We want Sikh young people to get a sense of their connection with Britain as Sikhs and the British have been interacting since the 1700s.
"I think this will become a major tourist destination for people all over the world."
The museum, which is opposite the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara temple, off Prince's Street, features a collection of cannons, hand-held weapons and coins from the Sikh empire in 18th-century India and also memorabilia from the time of the British Raj.
There are soon to be interactive displays and a full educational section with a specialist library of more than 300 books.
There is also a collection of material addressing the history of Sikh persecution.
During the 18th century, Sikhs were outlawed by the Indian government and endured barbaric persecution for about 50 years.
In the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination in India by two of her Sikh guards in 1984, thousands of Sikhs were slaughtered.
Mr Singh said: "The world is quite rightly aware of the Jewish holocaust but also the Sikhs have had an experience and it's almost an untold story."
The opening was attended by the Mayor of Derby, Councillor Barbara Jackson, and the MP for Derby South, Margaret Beckett.
Mrs Beckett, who released 300 balloons at the event and was wearing Sikh dress, said: "I think this is a tremendous thing that we now have in Derby. It's very important for the young people of the Sikh community to know about their origins and for others to learn about it.
"There's a tremendous tradition of working together

http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/Country-s-Sikh-museum-opened-Derby/article-495424-detail/article.html

Sikh man barred from wearing turban in court

2008-11-11T00:05:00.000-05:00

A San Joaquin County Superior Court judge says a Sikh man facing trial over the murder of his daughter's former boyfriend will have to appear before jurors without his turban.

Judge Charlotte Orcutt says that the long fabric pious men use to wrap their hair could hide a weapon or be used as a noose. [Link]

Airport search destroys info on local imam's laptop

2008-11-09T23:09:00.000-05:00

ImamMohammad Ali Elahi, of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, is an American citizen. He has lived in America for 18 years.

As a Muslim and an Imam, Elahi wears robes and the traditional amamah headwear of a Shi'a leader, which has made him a prime candidate for searches at airports.

On Oct. 22, after getting off a return flight from his native Iran at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Elahi was picked for a search. After a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer searched his luggage, they decided to search Elahi's laptop.

"This is not the first time I've been searched. I am accustomed to it," Elahi said. "I told the officer I had nothing to hide, and they took it away."

When CBP officers brought his computer back 20 minutes later, it was broken.

"I lost eight years of my work, since I did not have any backup of the information. They did not even apologize," Elahi said. [Link]

Racism seen in British politics

2008-11-09T22:52:00.000-05:00

If Barack Obama were British, racism would keep him from becoming prime minister, said the head of Britain's Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

That racism is not among the British electorate, but among the leaders of the political "machine," said Trevor Phillips, adding he believes the public would embrace a black leader.

"I would be very surprised if even somebody as brilliant as him (Obama) would have been able to break through the institutional stranglehold on power within the Labor Party," Phillips told The Daily Telegraph in a story published Saturday.

Despite Obama's success in U.S. politics, Phillips said he believes the United States remains more divided on racial issues than the United Kingdom.

"Here it's more about class. It is about culture, a different way of life and speaking," Phillips said, noting the U.K.'s Muslim community suffers greater discrimination.

"If you asked British voters whether you could have a Muslim prime minister their mouths would drop open, but not with a black one," Phillips said. [Link]

Valley's immigrants, minorities greet Obama's election with a torrent of joy, wondrous disbelief

2008-11-09T22:40:00.000-05:00

Sukhdev Singh Bainiwal, a 42-year-old software engineer from the Evergreen area of San Jose, knows what it's like to feel less American than others. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he was accosted by strangers and told to "go home" because, as a Sikh, he wears a turban.

But Bainiwal senses that America has become a more tolerant place since those scary days. And he was thrilled when his 17-year-old son, an Obama supporter, went to work as a poll worker, wearing his turban.

With Obama's election, Bainiwal said, "more barriers will continue to fall. People will vote for people based on the skills and knowledge that they have and what they stand for — and not because of the way they look." [Link]

Feds probe those from Muslim nations

2008-11-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

2,500 people investigated by immigration officials as part of Operation Front Line

When federal immigration agents paid a visit to his Santa Clara workplace a month before the 2004 presidential election, the Pakistani engineer assumed they came to talk about his pending visa renewal application.

What they wanted to know, however, was what mosque he attended and if he associated with anyone who has "anti-American" views. And what prompted their attention, according to a copy of the investigation, was an incident three years earlier, in which he attracted suspicion for taking "detailed photos" of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Newly released government documents show the engineer was one of roughly 2,500 immigrants investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of Operation Front Line, a 2004 probe that civil rights groups say was biased against Muslims.

An estimated 77 percent of those investigated were from predominantly Muslim countries, and none was charged with terrorism-related crimes, according to a sample of 300 cases released to civil rights groups last month after years of legal battle.

"The most striking thing about all of this is it doesn't work," said Yousef Munayyer, policy analyst at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which sought the information alongside Yale Law School's National Litigation Clinic. "The numbers show that racial profiling didn't lead to any national security-related charges." [Link]

Sikhs want action on Carteret bias attacks

2008-11-07T22:02:00.000-05:00

The Sikh community is seeking a comprehensive response to two violent attacks against their members last month, and the mayor's office convened a meeting Wednesday to begin to address their concerns.

"We'll hopefully get some action to prevent it in the future," said Gurjit Chima, the daughter of the victim of the most recent assault. "This goes so underreported, I think this should be publicized. You want people to know what's going on."

Her father, Ajit Singh Chima, 69, was beaten in the face and kicked before dawn by an unknown attacker last week. Less than three weeks prior, a 10-year-old boy, Gagandeep Singh, was jumped while walking home from school. His turban was removed and his hair was cut off, an offense to Sikhs who grow their hair as a sign of religious devotion.

The two cases are being investigated as bias crimes by the Carteret Police and the Middlesex County Prosecutor's office, but no arrests have been made. [Link]

Arson at Columbia mosque stirs compassion

2008-11-05T23:19:00.000-05:00

From the rubble of a firebombed mosque, relationships have emerged.

After local men burned the Islamic Center of Columbia, Tenn., to the ground in February, Muslim families had no place to worship. Donations came in to help establish a new center, and the First Presbyterian Church in town allowed them to worship at its church.

"It's just a great example of how we can believe different things and respect, celebrate each other," said Daoud Abudiab, president of the Islamic Center of Columbia. "And that's regardless of those who carry out acts of hate toward other groups."

Two of the three men charged with destroying and vandalizing the mosque pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court in Nashville, as the Islamic Center works to open its doors at 500 Carter St. in Columbia. [Link]

Casey McNerthney Taxi driver assaulted in possible hate crime

2008-11-05T23:12:00.000-05:00

A drunken man was arrested early Wednesday morning after police say he repeatedly punched a taxi driver in the back of the head, complaining that he was an immigrant from a Muslim nation.

Police say the man continued to threaten the diver near 15th Avenue Northwest and Northwest Market Street until officers were called.

The man was booked for into King County Jail for investigation of malicious mischief.[Link]

Que. feminist publishes broadside against peers over hijab

2008-11-05T23:11:00.000-05:00

In an unusual act of non-solidarity, a veteran Quebec feminist has launched a public attack against her peers on the political left who, she says, undermine women's rights by supporting religious accommodations like the Muslim head scarf.

Singling out the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, Quebec Solidaire and the Federation des Femmes, as well as the Bouchard-Taylor commission, Diane Guilbault airs her criticism in a new French-language chapbook called Democratie et egalite des sexes (Democracy and Sexual Equality).

"It wasn't long ago in Quebec that women were obliged to cover themselves to go to church, and it's something we, as women, react strongly against now that we see it coming back in the form of the hijab," Guilbault said at her book launch th
"For me, even if it's something those women choose to do, it is in no way a feminist act. A feminist act is something that aims for emancipation, both of oneself, as an individual, and as a group. It's not a feminist choice to choose the veil." [Link]

Racism Isn't Keeping Arab Americans from the Polls

2008-11-04T22:09:00.002-05:00

rab Americans are expected to vote in large numbers Tuesday, despite concerns over voter intimidation and weak outreach from the presidential candidates, representatives of major community organizations say.

The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has set up a voter protection unit staffed by lawyers to help dispel rumors that may have prevented some from going to the polls in the past.

"As always, there will be voter intimidation," predicted Abed Ayoub, one of five attorneys attached to the unit. Enthusiasm for the election is higher than it was in 2004, he contended, pointing to a recent ADC-sponsored event in Michigan that saw at least 500 Arab Americans register in just two days.

At the same time, the ADC has received hundreds of calls over recent months from Arab Americans who mistakenly believed they may have been ineligible to vote.

"One rumor was that if you are in foreclosure, you can't vote," Ayoub said. Another is the misconception that those who couldn't read or write in English -- often a problem for elderly Arab Americans -- would not be allowed to use translators.

But the greatest fear is of an incident like the one at the 1999 municipal election in Hamtramck, Michigan, where dozens of dark-skinned Arab Americans were asked to take a citizenship oath before voting. The move caused many to avoid the polls for fear of embarrassment.

Even in more recent elections, a number of complaints were made to ADC, though never made public, the lawyer said. "This year we want to attack the problem before it happens," Ayoub said.

Votes of the estimated 3.5 million Arab Americans could be pivotal, especially in swing states. And though a September poll by the Arab American Institute showed that Sen. Barack Obama was far more popular -- with a 54 percent to 33 percent lead over Sen. John McCain -- it also found that 20 percent of Arab Americans are not enrolled in any political party. And Arab organizations say both presidential campaigns have largely failed to recognize Arab Americans as an important voting bloc.

"Neither party has done a lot of outreach to the community," said Lelia Al-Qatami, ADC's communications and cultural affairs director. "Ethnic outreach is very common, but we haven't seen any with regards to the Arab community." [Link]

Two Years of Inspiration

2008-11-04T22:09:00.001-05:00

There are all sorts of people who have volunteered for the Obama campaign for passionate reasons of their own. One of the hardest-working subsets of Obama campaign volunteers are Muslim-Americans, who have struggled for acceptance into American culture ever since 9/11. Whisper campaigns designed to paint Obama as a Muslim (and therefore, a terrorist) has been particularly hurtful to them, especially after John McCain commented to a supporter that Obama was not an Arab, but "a good man, a family man," as if an Arab-American could not be either one.

Even worse for the community was an incendiary DVD circulated in thousands of newspapers and paid for by a right-wing political action committee entitled, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." This was deeply distressing because then, even friends, co-workers, and neighbors began to regard Muslims they'd known for years with suspicion.

Needless to say, there is a strong Get Out the Vote effort underway within the Muslim-American community. While they are disappointed that Obama has not been more forceful in their defense, they do believe that his election would help a great deal to tamp down some of the discrimination they have had to face[.] [Link]

Outrage over Muslim Massacre online game

2008-11-04T21:31:00.000-05:00

The Australian Muslim community has accused the Federal Government and police of double standards over their treatment of a free online game in which the aim is to kill as many Muslims as possible.

Keysar Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association, wrote to the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, expressing outrage over the game, Muslim Massacre, saying it teaches young people to "further hate Muslims" and encourages them to carry out "acts of discrimination, vilification or outright violence against Australian Muslims".

The game, launched as a free download on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, invites players to take control of an American "hero" and "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons". [Link]

Muslims Strive for Tolerance -- and Votes

2008-11-01T15:33:00.000-05:00

Republicans spread a false rumor that Barack Obama, whose middle name is Hussein and whose paternal grandfather was Muslim, is secretly a Muslim himself; Obama, a church-going Christian, denied it, and many said he did not go far enough in denouncing the racism behind the claim. At a rally, John McCain corrected a supporter, saying Obama is not an Arab but a family man.

"There is a subtext of extreme distrust that filters in the mainstream," Ramey says, "that Muslims are not patriotic. That Muslims are unworthy of trust. The comments generally tend to underscore an element of deep racism and xenophobia in the political establishment. Sometimes, it's spoken openly. Sometimes, it is spoken in code."

"The rhetoric of anti-Muslim sentiment has become more acceptable in public gatherings and in the right-wing media," Hossain says. "It has made Muslims very, very concerned that there is a rekindling of the post 9/11 paranoia," when many Muslims were detained for questioning simply for being Muslim and many more feared being attacked in the streets.

So Hossain, a Bangladeshi immigrant who laughs when he tells you he has just bought a farm in rural Virginia "where the real Americans live," organizes. The 48-year-old dictates news releases. He distributes get-out-the-vote literature. He gives speeches at mosques. He calls taxi drivers, promising monetary help for those who take time Tuesday to get people to the polls.

* * *

"Many of the Muslims who came to this country came from countries where voting was a dangerous and dirty thing to do," Hossain says. "We have to convince them that voting is not only safe and clean, but it is a civic responsibility."

In the center parking lot, he hands Obama volunteer David Kirshbaum, 53, a stack of yellow cards printed with a mild endorsement of the candidate by the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee: "Muslim Americans were upset that Senator Obama, when called a Muslim by fear and hate mongering bigots, failed to make a principled stand . . . by not asking what's wrong in being a Muslim anyway while he asserted his own faith. However . . . now that has become a target of racial slurs and pejorative epithets, it is incumbent on us to make the same principled stand we had asked of him. We must challenge the politics of bigotry and divisiveness."

It took Colin Powell, a Republican, to break the tension.

"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" Powell said last month on "Meet the Press." "The answer's 'no.' Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America." [Link]

Compromise lets Sikh testify and keep kirpan

2008-11-01T14:34:00.000-05:00

A judge has decided a Sikh man can testify at a trial later this month by video conference for religious reasons after he was refused entry to court for wearing his kirpan.

Court of Queen's Bench Justice Bryan Mahoney made the ruling after hearing an application from Crown prosecutor Beverly Bauer on Friday.

Bauer said defence lawyer Patrick Flynn agreed to what is essentially a compromise.[Link]

NYT: Inquiry Targeted 2,000 Foreign Muslims in 2004

2008-10-30T23:02:00.000-05:00

An operation in 2004 meant to disrupt potential terrorist plots before and after that year’s presidential election focused on more than 2,000 immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, but most were found to have done nothing wrong, according to newly disclosed government data....

[D]ocuments show that more than 2,500 foreigners in the United States were sought as “priority leads” in the fall of 2004 because of suspicions that they could present threats to national security in the months before the presidential election and the inauguration. Some of those foreigners were detained and ultimately deported because they had overstayed their visas, but many were in this country legally, and the vast majority were not charged....

“This was profiling,” said Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who helped lead the research effort. He added that the findings raised questions about both the effectiveness and the propriety of the program.

“The resources devoted to this were enormous,” he said, “but the results clearly were not.” [Link]

Hate Crimes Committed Against 2 NJ Sikhs

2008-10-30T22:42:00.000-05:00

A man and a young boy were attacked because of their religion Monday night.

A 67-year-old New Jersey man, a Sikh, was beaten and bloodied, while a 10-year-old boy was also attacked.

"It shouldn't happen to anyone," Ajit Singh Chima said.

Battered and brave is 67-year-old Chima, talking about how his usual morning exercise on Carteret St. Monday suddenly turned into a violent exercise in hate.

"I said, 'what do you want?' And he hit me," Chima said. "A blow on the nose knocked me to the ground, [then] he kept punching and punching."

The man who jumped him was in his twenties, had a medium complexion and may be the same suspect in another bias attack on a young boy three weeks earlier.

10 year old Gagandeep Singh was walking home from school. His main injury is something he does not want anyone to see – to his hair, which Sikh boys and men consider a gift from god and keep long.

"He came out of nowhere," Singh said. "He just came up behind me, threw me on the floor, held me with his feet and cut my hair with the knife or scissor. Then I jumped a few fences and ran away because I was so scared."

Singh could not see the face of the suspect, who wore a mask. Because both victims are Sikh and because there was no theft, police believe the motive is hatred, based on the victims' religious beliefs.

"The Sikh community in Carteret is very tight-knit, numbering at about a thousand people. The question members have for the attacker or attackers is why.

"Why did you cut my hair?" Singh asks. "What do you want from Punjabis?"

Gagandeep's sister Jasvir Kaur summed the problem up.

"We respect other religions, and we want them to respect us too." [Link]

Sikh: ‘I am good people’

2008-10-28T22:43:00.000-05:00

Dave Singh wants to get a message out to people in the Goodman area: Don’t fear the turban.

Singh, a native of India who recently purchased the Goodman Mini-Mart, is a member of the Sikh religion, which, according to Wikipedia, is the fifth largest religion in the world.

Singh, who came to Goodman from Pennsylvania, wears a blue turban in keeping with his faith.

“I want to tell people that I am good people and I want to do business here,” he said. “I like the countryside. Where I’m from in Pennsylvania, it is a lot like here, a lot of countryside.”

Singh and his family, including his wife, their three children and his elderly father, have been in the United States for 20 years. His father worked for the British government during World War II, while a brother has followed the father’s footsteps and also worked for the British.

“All of my family are now citizens of the U.S.,” he stated.

He proudly talks of his three children, saying all three are employed: A daughter works for a bank, another works for a gas company, while his son works with him in the business in Goodman.

“We want to do something good in the community,” he said. “We hope to do very good.”

Singh first worked for a convenience store in Pennsylvania for six years before starting his own in 1998. Several weeks ago, he heard the Goodman store was for sale, purchasing it just over a month ago.

“I kept all three of the employees, as they’re very good people,” Singh said. “They helped me clean the store and they take good care of the customers.”

“I enjoy working with them — they’re good people,” said Kimberly Mensink, a clerk at the store. “I hope they succeed here. Dave has a lot of good ideas for the store.”

The mini-mart offers gasoline and typical convenience store grocery items such as soda, snacks, beer, and coffee.

Sometimes, customers ask for items the store doesn’t carry. When they do, Singh writes down each request, placing those items in his next order to suppliers.

“We try to make everyone happy,” Singh said. [Link]

Op-ed: FBI takes step back on civil rights

2008-10-26T21:36:00.000-05:00

There are times when the U.S. government allows politics to interfere with policy and ends up shooting itself in the foot. Guidelines set to take effect Dec. 1 for the FBI may be a perfect example.

Issued by Attorney General Michael Mukasey's Department of Justice, the new guidelines for FBI agents will be a dangerous step back into J. Edgar Hoover's era of disregard for civil rights and civil liberties.

The guidelines permit agents to use criteria such as national origin, travel history, race or ethnic background as part of opening an investigation. Ironically, the attorney general's original guidelines in this area were established to curb such profiling, after information surfaced about the unwarranted investigation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

These new guidelines represent a danger to the Arab- and Muslim-American community in particular, but to all Americans as well. In the era in which we live, it has almost become cliché -- sadly -- to point out that an attack on one American's civil liberties is an attack on all Americans and the American ideal.

But, to all Americans, the danger of this new policy is less romantic than that. The reality is that little or no scientific evidence supports the idea that racial profiling actually works. This alone should make every American concerned about the massive inefficiencies in the use of resources by the FBI in national security, an area in which we cannot afford to misappropriate one cent.

Furthermore, the guidelines will put a strain on a relationship that, contrary to racial profiling, has been proved to lead to the arrests of terror suspects. For years, leaders of the Arab- and Muslim-American community have been working with the FBI, and other law enforcement throughout the country, to break down barriers and create trust.

For these leaders, convincing community members that federal law enforcement is trustworthy after a long history of less-than-pleasant encounters is not an easy task. From Operation Boulder, a spying operation targeting Arab Americans initiated by President Richard Nixon in 1972, to the post-9/11 response, law-abiding Arab and Muslim Americans have often been unfairly targeted by law enforcement officials.

Still, community leaders and organizations have made great strides into bridging this gap and have created the type of cooperation that stops terror. This cooperation, for example, led to the FBI's breakup of a terror cell, the Lackawana Six, in Buffalo, N.Y., in 2002, which was greatly aided by a tip from the Arab and Muslim community in the area. Or other various cooperative meetings between FBI agents and Muslim community leaders to combat radicalization at the grassroots level.

Sadly, these new guidelines will put this relationship at risk. The FBI has taken steps to reach out to community members to develop and maintain a relationship precisely because solid human intelligence is invaluable when it comes to stopping crime.

The question that remains is: Does the Department of Justice realize how much more difficult the FBI's job will become if this relationship is in jeopardy, or do they simply not care?

The new guidelines come to light at a curious time, so close to a national election that may pivot on questions of national security and patriotism.

One cannot but wonder how much of this policy-making is being motivated by politics instead of a genuine interest in national security. It's time to focus on the types of methods that put terrorists behind bars, not those geared toward putting politicians in office. [Link]

Student charged with faking attack

2008-10-26T20:59:00.000-05:00

Muslim woman said masked man targeted her over religion

She said she was the victim of a hate crime, but now police say a 19-year-old Elmhurst College student made up her story that a masked man attacked her in a campus restroom because she's a Muslim.

Safia Z. Jilani, a 19-year-old sophomore at the school, was charged Friday with filing a false police report, a Class 4 felony punishable by one to three years in prison, Elmhurst police said. [Link]

NJ: Culture, history embraced

2008-10-24T21:30:00.000-05:00

Governor Corzine signed an executive order Friday in a ceremony at the Passaic County Technical Institute creating the New Jersey Arab-American Heritage Commission.

The 25-member commission will coordinate events observing the heritage, culture and history of Arab-Americans, as well as work with schools to ensure that curriculum reflects the state’s diverse population....

Before signing the order, Corzine and Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, referred to remarks made by Colin Powell on "Meet the Press" Sunday, when he took on false rumors that presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is Muslim and asked, "Is there something wrong with being Muslim in this country?" Powell concluded his comments with a reference to the death of a Muslim soldier from New Jersey, Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan of Manahawkin, who was killed in Iraq on Aug. 6, 2007.

Pascrell emphasized Paterson’s strong Arab community and the need to counter stereotypes and racial profiling.

"The day of litmus tests over who is a good American and who is not a good American is over," Pascrell said. [Link]

Army admits 34 soldiers killed in ’84 anti-Sikh riots

2008-10-24T20:26:00.000-05:00

Admitting for the first time that soldiers were killed in the anti-Sikh riots in the aftermath of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, Army authorities have sought details of such victims and called for speedy compensation for the next of kin.

The Rehabilitation and Welfare Section of Ceremonial and Welfare Directorate, Adjutant General’s branch in the Army Headquarters in Delhi, sent a note to various Commands and Regiments that as many as 34 Army personnel (including one ex-serviceman) were killed in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. And that all efforts be made to report on the progress of their compensation cases with respective state governments in tune with the package announced by the Centre in January 2006....

Said Pratap Singh Phoolka, a retired Army officer who has been leading the campaign and is identifying such cases on his own: “The untimely delay caused by the Army in this regard has caused immense damage. Parents of many such unmarried victims have also died in these 25 long years. Who will get the compensation now?”

He, however, welcomed the Army recognising the killing of its personnel during transit in 1984. Phoolka claimed that only a few have been identified so far and that there could be around 300 soldiers who had lost their lives in the riots.

Phoolka started his campiagn after two of his own men in 63 Cavalry died in transit, Capt I P S Bindra in Meerut and Sepoy Sukminderjit Singh Morena in Madhya Pradesh. The SGPC recently announced a Rs 1-lakh grant to the families of the soldiers killed.[Link]

Soldier fined for turban scuffle

2008-10-23T20:31:00.001-05:00

A soldier who pulled off a man's turban during an Edinburgh nightclub scuffle because he "didn't like" people with turbans has been fined £280.

Raty Yavala, 29, had just returned from fighting in Iraq with the First Scots Regiment when he went out in Edinburgh.

Yavala, from Fiji, was in the All Purple Bar in Hanover Street when he began arguing with another clubber.

Yavala pleaded guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to a breach of the peace at the club on 30 September 2007.

Yavala, who is based at Dreghorn Barracks near Edinburgh, shouted and swore at the Sikh man before pulling off his turban and calling him a racist name. [Link]

National Wholesale Liquidators to Pay $255,000 to Abused South Asian Employees

2008-10-23T20:30:00.000-05:00

A Hempstead, N.Y.-based chain of retail discount stores, National Wholesale Liquidators, Inc., will pay $255,000 and agree to injunctive relief to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today. The EEOC had charged that the company subjected employees to a hostile work environment based on their race, national origin and religion and sexually harassed an employee.

In its lawsuit, the EEOC said a National Wholesale Liquidators store manager subjected South Asian workers to taunts about their national origin and religion. The EEOC also charged that the store manager sexually harassed a female employee. The woman, a Sikh, was told by the manager to remove her turban because she “would appear sexier without it.”

“The EEOC hopes this settlement encourages employers to take steps to educate their managers and employees,” said Margaret A. Malloy, the EEOC trial attorney assigned to the case. “Harassing employees based on national origin, sex or religion is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

EEOC New York District Director Spencer H. Lewis said, “This case should remind employers to take seriously allegations of harassment, especially where managers in positions of authority are involved in the misconduct.” [Link]

Vandals Target Omaha Mosque

2008-10-22T20:54:00.000-05:00

A place of worship for Muslims in Omaha was the target of vandals.

It happened at a mosque near 133rd Street and Q Street.

Somebody threw a rock through the front door and shattered the glass sometime between Monday and Tuesday night.

A worshipper at the mosque, Bilal Khaleeq, believes the attack was a hate crime. “This is where we offer our prayers. We build our community, bring our children to educate so it does have a lot of emotional attachment,” Khaleeq said. [Link]

SF Gate: Picture of the Day

2008-10-22T20:36:00.000-05:00

Sikh devotees walk past the Golden Temple, Sikh's holiest shrine, on the 300th anniversary celebrations of Guru Granth Sahib, or Sikh holy book, in Amrtisar, India.

Muslim women's head scarf a veil of mystery

2008-10-21T20:57:00.000-05:00

It's all about the veil.

The hijab is a flowing slip of fabric Muslim women wrap scarf-like around their heads, tucking their hair beneath it so that not even a wisp escapes. They wear them pulled down to cover much of their foreheads, as well.

Long before she arrived on the Fairfield University campus as a freshman, Nargis Alizada, an Afghan refugee, donned a hijab in California when she became a teenager.

A motorcyclist spotted Alizada strolling down a San Diego street with her younger brother and drove off the road, onto the sidewalk, cursed her out as a "[bleep]ing Muslim. You're killing our people," and ripped her hijab off her head before knocking her down. The time was two years after the 9/11 attacks. "I was running as fast as I could," Alizada said. "I was so scared."

The experience left Alizada, her family and friends -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- shaken. Alizada's a petite, small-boned teenager with a waif-like look. It belies the dangers she's faced growing up in a fundamentalist country where it's illegal -- even a capital crime -- to teach a girl, or how her grandparents paid a tutor to educate her in secret in a basement of their home. Or how her dad paid smugglers $20,000 to sneak Alizada, her mom, sister and brother out of Afghanistan into Iran, hunched down under piles of hay and blankets in farm trucks and other vehicles.

"All of my friends figured I would stop wearing my hijab," Alizada said. "They told me that they understood if I didn't want to anymore."

Wearing a hijab is "part of our religion and our Quran's teachings to dress modestly," she said. "But I know many Muslim women who are devout who choose not to wear them." [Link]

Three men charged with terrorizing Muslim families

2008-10-20T20:55:00.000-05:00

Three North Shore men have been charged in federal court with terrorizing two Revere families just because they practice Islam.

Prosecutors of the U.S. Attorney’s Office have charged Adam J. Bonito, 21, of Revere, Christopher D. Giaquinto, 22, of Winthrop and a juvenile male with criminal conspiracy to commit a hate crime.

Christina DiIorio-Sterling, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan’s Office, announced Friday that the suspects would be charged with vandalizing and damaging the vehicles of the two Muslim families, who lived in the same Revere duplex, in 2004 and 2005.

A press release about the case did not specify where in the city the victims lived.

Prosecutors allege, “it was the plan and purpose of the conspiracy to vandalize a van, believed to belong to one of the residents, in order to interfere with the victim’s housing rights because of race,” DiIorio-Sterling said. “The intended victim was an Arab Muslim person of Middle Eastern origin who lived at the duplex in Revere.” [Link]

Elmhurst offers safety escorts for Muslim students

2008-10-12T22:38:00.000-05:00

A suburban Chicago college has stepped up safety measures after an alleged attack on a female Muslim student which officials deemed a hate crime.

Elmhurst College officials on Friday contacted Muslim students to offer safety escorts and Elmhurst police increased patrols on the nearly 3,000-student campus.

Police say the alleged attack occurred Thursday evening in a science building bathroom by a man wearing a ski mask. Authorities say they found anti-Muslim graffiti there.

Officials placed the school on lock down for an hour and ordered students to stay indoors.

Elmhurst College spokesman Charley Henderson says the student found racial slurs and a swastika earlier this month in her locker. The matter was turned over to Elmhurst police.[Link]

Muslim student attacked at Elmhurst College

2008-10-12T22:36:00.000-05:00

A Muslim student was attacked at Elmhurst College in what school officials described as a hate crime had found anti-Islamic slurs and a swastika scrawled in her locker a week earlier, police and students said Friday.

The 19-year-old sophomore told police a masked, male attacker struck her in the head with a handgun about 8:30 p.m. Thursday after she entered a restroom in the school's Schaible Science Center. She suffered a concussion.

Threatening graffiti - "Kill the Muslims" - was written on a mirror in the restroom, students and police said.

Earlier Thursday, the victim had spoken at a demonstration called to denounce the anti-Islamic slurs and swastika she had discovered Oct. 2 in her locker, school officials and students said. Among the slurs was the phrase "Die Muslims."

Both cases are being investigated as hate crimes, Elmhurst College spokesman Charley Henderson said.

"They have some common threads," Henderson said.

The victim - who wears an Islamic head scarf - and two other Muslim students had been verbally harassed and taunted Sept. 18 during a campus protest calling for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, friends said.

The Thursday night attack triggered an hourlong lockdown at the college while police searched the campus - and prompted hundreds of students to rally again Friday to protest the incident and call for unity. [Link]

Sikh taxi driver's turban ripped off in drunken attack

2008-10-12T22:33:00.000-05:00

A drunken lorry driver who ripped off a Sikh taxi driver's turban and then tried to steal a motorist's car keys has been jailed for a year.

William Carr, 36, was aggressive and argumentative as the taxi he was being driven home in pulled into Watford Gap services on the M1 on November 11 last year.

Rebecca Wade, prosecuting, said: "They got out and the defendant started being aggressive towards the taxi driver, being abusive and swearing."

He grabbed hold of Ajit Singh Dhillon's car keys, £120 in cash and a mobile phone, before ripping off his turban and then trying to headbutt him several times.

The taxi driver managed to keep out of his way and called the police as Carr turned his attention to a passing motorist, who had stopped at the motorway service station.

Northampton Crown Court heard last week how Carr approached motorist Vimal Palmer and launched an unprovoked attack, while trying to steal his car keys.

After being arrested, Carr told officers he was so drunk he had no recollection of the incident.

Judge Richard Bray said: "He was drunk and assaulted a taxi driver; a nasty assault of an Asian taxi driver and his turban was taken off his head and thrown away.

"It's a grave insult and an aggravating feature."

Carr, of Fallowfields, in Crick, pleaded guilty to affray, theft of cash and a mobile phone and the attempted robbery of Vimal Palmer's car keys.

Jailing him for a year, Judge Bray said: "The taxi driver was assaulted in a humiliating manner and must have been very upset by your behaviour.

"There has to be a prison sentence.

"Attacks on taxi drivers at night have become all too prevalent," he added.

Claire Howell, defending, said Carr had been shocked by his behaviour after watching the CCTV footage from Watford Gap and wanted to compensate Mr Singh Dhillon.

She said: "This defendant was very, very drunk and was appalled by what he was said to have done. He is deeply ashamed of his behaviour that night." [Link]

Police: No evidence of hate crime at local mosque

2008-09-29T23:59:00.000-05:00

A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.

The girl was watching children whose parents and relatives had gathered at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, 26 Josie St., to celebrate Ramadan when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window about 9:40 p.m., according to police.

One of the men then sprayed something through the open window and into the girl's face from a white can with a red top, according to a police report. The girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt "sick to her stomach," the report stated.

Other children and a woman in the room felt affects from the chemical and the mosque was evacuated.

"The men didn't say anything to her (before she was sprayed)," Biehl said. "There was nothing left at the scene or anything that makes us believe this is a biased crime."

HAZMAT crews called to the scene started testing for chemicals less than 20 minutes after a member of the mosque called 911, team coordinator Denny Bristow said.

"Whatever chemical was released it dissipated too quickly for us to determine what it was," Bristow said. "We can test for about 130 to 140 chemicals, including pepper spray, and all our tests came back negative."

Bristow said there were no chemicals found on the 10-year-old girl.

A few of the 300 people celebrating the last 10 days of Ramadan with dinner and a prayer session were treated for eye irritation at the scene. [Link]

France: “Sikhs can’t be above rule ”

2008-09-29T23:54:00.000-05:00

President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday made it clear that Sikhs could not hope to be above the rules in France.

He was replying to a question on the controversy over Sikh students being prohibited from wearing turban to educational institutions.

Mr. Sarkozy was unambiguous and firm: “The Sikhs were most welcome; but we have rules, rules of secularism” which were applicable to all “on the territory of France.”

In this insistence on uniform application of rules, “there was no discrimination.” [Link]

Prosecution boss must undergo training after race case

2008-09-28T23:10:00.000-05:00

The head of the Crown Prosecution Service in West Yorkshire is to undergo “training” in the wake of an employment tribunal that saw a Muslim solicitor awarded a record £600,000 payout for racial discrimination.

Chief Prosecutor Neil Franklin is among a number of senior managers involved in the case who will be given “further guidance and training.”

Halima Aziz was suspended from work by the CPS after joking at Bradford Magistrates’ Court that she was a friend of Osama bin Laden. Earlier this month, an employment tribunal found that there was “not a shred of evidence” to support the treatment of Miss Aziz by the CPS.

The lawyer was working at Bradford Magistrates in October 2001 – a month after 9/11 – when she was accused of blaming the terror attacks in the US on “Jews”. Miss Aziz denied making that comment, saying that she joked, as she was going through a security check at the court, that she was being treated like a friend of Bin Laden.

She was suspended from duty while a complaint from the court was investigated and she was cleared of all allegations in 2002.

The Employment Tribunal found that senior officials at the CPS were guilty of racial discrimination for the way they handled her case and that a previous inquiry run by chief executive Peter Lewis was a “whitewash”. And it identified Mr Franklin as one of the “principal discriminators”.

The CPS said it accepted the recommendations in the judgement and has now revealed that it will provide further guidance and training for the managers involved.

But the CPS does not accept certain elements of the judgement and is seeking a review and appeal on those.

The CPS said the specific elements it was appealing against were the references to the CPS withholding material from the Tribunal, the Employment Appeals Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. [Link]

Probe continues into chemicals at mosque

2008-09-27T21:34:00.000-05:00

Officials from the Dayton fire department and HAZMAT have not determined what type of chemical was released during a Friday night service at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton center, 26 Josie St., according to Dayton Fire Lt. John Strukamp.

The Society held the service to recognize and celebrate Ramadan, but the service was disrupted by a suspected chemical irritant that forced members out of the church and into the streets. [Link]

FBI investigating burning of mosque sign

2008-09-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

The FBI is investigating the burning of a mosque's sign in Joplin as a potential hate crime.

The sign for the Islamic Society of Joplin was set aflame early Thursday morning. Fire investigators say there's no doubt the fire was deliberately set.

The Jasper County Sheriff's Department initially investigated the arson but the FBI has taken over.

Navid Zaidi, the society's treasurer, says the mosque hasn't had much trouble since in opened in February 2007 other than the occasional shouted comments from passing drivers.

But he says he believes the burning was a hate crime.

Zaidi says the mosque put up the sign two months ago to better fit in the community. It reads "Islamic Society of Joplin" in both English and Arabic. [Link]

Sikh boy denies threatening classmates

2008-09-27T21:29:00.000-05:00

A 13-year-old Sikh boy in Canada pleaded innocent to charges he threatened two classmates with a ceremonial dagger.

Appearing in Montreal Youth Court this week, the unidentified teenager said he didn't use a ceremonial kirpan to threaten two classmates in an alleged incident Sept. 11 and has asked the court to grant him a speedy trial, The Gazette said Friday.

Montreal police have accused the teen of responding to an argument with two classmates by threatening them with the religious dagger.

One of the boy's defense lawyers has accused the Marguerite-Bourgeoys school board of targeting the Cavelier de LaSalle secondary school student because of his religion.

"I'm a great admirer of Quebec, but on this issue there's dissonance. Quebec is so obsessed with kirpans. There's something unhealthy about it," lawyer Julius Grey, whose client's trial begins on Oct. 29, told the Globe & Mail. [Link]

SALDEF Expresses Alarm About New Investigative Powers of FBI

2008-09-27T14:07:00.000-05:00

New Attorney General Guidelines May Legitimize Racial and Ethnic Profiling

The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF)... is deeply concerned by new FBI guidelines that could lower the threshold for federal law enforcement officers to conduct investigations of individuals on the mere suspicion of questionable activity or meeting the FBI’s assessment of what it considers to be a threat.

Last week, SALDEF, along with other civil rights groups, met with Justice Department officials and reviewed draft language of the revised Attorney General (AG) Guidelines governing the investigative powers of the FBI in matters of national security. The new guidelines, which are slated to be approved on October 1, 2008, represent a major shift in public policy.

These new guidelines would allow the FBI to recruit informants, conduct pretext interviews without identifying the agency the investigator works for, and allow for physical surveillance of persons, including U.S. citizens, in the United States without evidence of criminal activity. Additionally, they would replace existing guidelines for five types of guidelines: general criminal, national security, foreign intelligence, civil disorders and demonstrations.

Currently these intrusive investigative measures are already in place to investigate criminal conduct which is based on physical evidence. The new AG guidelines will lower the standard for utilizing intrusive investigative techniques by not requiring evidence of criminal conduct, but simply the mere accusation of impropriety. [SALDEF Press Release]

3 charged with committing hate crime

2008-09-26T21:36:00.000-05:00

Two Greater Boston men and a juvenile were charged yesterday with committing a hate crime against two Muslim families in Revere, according to a statement from US attorney Michael J. Sullivan.

Adam J. Bonito, 21, of Revere and Christopher D. Giaquinto, 22, of Winthrop were charged with carrying out a criminal conspiracy that interfered with the fair housing rights of two Muslim families living in a duplex in Revere, according to Sullivan.

Bonito and Giaquinto repeatedly damaged and vandalized vehicles parked in front of the duplex shared by the families in 2004 and 2005, Sullivan said.

The intended victim was a Muslim of Middle Eastern descent who lived at the duplex.

A person at each of the homes of Bonito and Giaquinto said the men declined comment last night.

Bonito and Giaquinto, along with others, allegedly vandalized a Nissan van parked outside the house on Sept. 19, 2004, breaking a windshield and several windows and damaging the body of the van, Sullivan alleges.

During January and March 2005, Bonito and another person vandalized a Dodge van parked in front of the house that they believed belonged to the same victim, the US attorney said.

Another male, whose name was not released because he is under 18, has been charged in juvenile delinquency proceedings for his "bias motivated acts of vandalism," Sullivan said. [Link]

Divided We Fall

2008-09-26T21:31:00.000-05:00

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 20-year-old college student Valarie Kaur went on an epic journey across America to document the hate violence against minorities that had so increased since the attacks.

Her film, "Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath" is the result, and it will play at the Virginia Holocaust Museum this Sunday at 2 p.m.

The film examines the idea of "who counts as an American." Since September 11, a violent backlash on America's own soil has taken place, effecting Sikh, Arab, South Asian, Latino and other brown-skinned Americans.

The first person murdered in reaction to the September 11 attacks was Balbir Singh Sodhi, in Mesa, Arizona on September 15th. The federal government reported 1700 percent increase in 'anti-Muslim' hate crimes, from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001.

These statistics, as the film's website points out, do not include more subtle forms of discrimination, or that which went unreported.

Kaur worked with a crew who was also mostly in their twenties, all of whom worked without pay to make the film a reality. The initial stages of production were completed entirely due to grassroots donations. Eastman Kodak donated nearly half of the film stock.

After the film, there will be open discussion between the filmmakers and the audience. The film has been on tour across America, being shown in colleges, churches and various other venues since September 11, 2008. The tour will span 50 cities. [Link]

New Report Finds Violent Hate Crime on the Rise

2008-09-24T22:23:00.000-05:00

Incidents of violent hate crime targeting a number of minority groups are increasing or occurring at historically high levels in many of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) member-states, as governments fail to combat such crimes, a new report finds....

Despite ample evidence of acts of violence targeting Muslims and those perceived to be Muslims across Europe and North America, only five of the 56 OSCE governments publicly report on such incidents. [Link]

Canada: Islamophobia alive on campus

2008-09-23T23:55:00.000-05:00

Within a week of this new school year, fellow Muslim friends and I had already experienced a couple instances of Islamophobia. Both were derogatory slurs yelled from a moving vehicle, ensuring anonymity and suggesting cowardice....

Many of my Muslim friends can relay stories of name-calling and crude looks—and from fellow members of the Queen’s community too. Yet there is a Muslim ethos of making excuses, so these stories rarely make it out of friend circles. And although most of the cases of Islamophobia on campus have been petty, it’s important these things are acknowledged and discussed, especially if it’s going to persist.

It is thus important that opinions about a religion or religious peoples are addressed head-on so sound discussion can take place. University is not a place for censorship, but rather a place for expression and the healthy exchange of ideas and opinions. As members of this community, we are not required to agree with the customs and beliefs of others; critical thinking is, in fact, encouraged. However, mutual respect is mandatory in order for everyone to have a positive learning experience in an environment that they feel safe in. Yelling something offensive and driving away is too easy an escape. It’s time to own up to prejudices.

And the onus falls upon us, the students. We can pretend discrimination doesn’t exist, especially at an institution of higher learning. Surely everyone knows better than to associate anyone who wears a headscarf with the Taliban. Islamophobia, just like all other types of discrimination, is a thing of the past, at least for the more civilized amongst us. Unfortunate as it is though, these are real views that a minority of people on campus do indeed hold....

And although such incidents are more trivial in nature, the fact remains that there are people who feel it’s necessary to express stronger views. This past weekend, a [Muslim student organization] sign was defaced with comments that called for the death of Muslims. I can only hope incidents like this help to open our collective eyes to the larger problem. [Link]

Ireland: I want my daughters to have the legal right to wear hijab to school

2008-09-23T23:52:00.000-05:00

The issue of the hijab clearly defines how modern Ireland treats its minorities. Irish Muslims deserve the right to dress how they wish and be as Irish as everyone else when doing so.

Continued official prevarication and the ill-informed criticism that has met this call is an indication that sensible social policy needs to be enacted. It seems strange that some people are so clearly offended by others' religious needs.

Modern Ireland can do better for all its citizens.

Some schools allow the hijab while others do not -- and this disparity in practice has necessitated the intervention of the Equality Authority.

Integration Minister Conor Lenihan naively states that there "are no examples of schools where it has been an issue. But there are plenty examples of where it has been accommodated," a statement that is both illogical and untrue.

There are cases of Muslim girls suffering discrimination based upon their religious dress across the country. Indeed, emboldened by Government inaction, a number of schools have explicitly banned the hijab since the new term this year and the Irish Hijab Campaign is following up on further reports....

The failure of the Government to uphold the constitutional rights of Muslims to practice their religion by legislating for the hijab -- in whatever way it manifests itself -- and mainstreaming it in Irish society, is simply a green light for the continuance of 'divergent practices' and discrimination....

The measure of a truly progressive society is how it treats its minorities. In this respect the issue of the hijab will remain.

However, let us not forget about other concerns such as burial space, prayer space, religious accommodation in the workplace, proper inclusion in the political process, the lack of Muslim schools, mosques, etc.

All of these point to inequality and must be addressed if Muslims are ever going to feel that they 'belong'.

I believe we can all build a better Ireland based on equal respect; an Ireland where we can all play a positive role. [Link]

Muslim Leader Says Plant Should Investigate, Not Educate

2008-09-23T23:49:00.002-05:00

A Somali Muslim leader said the state commission that handles discrimination complaints needs to investigate concerns at a Grand Island meatpacking plant, not educate the community.

Somali Muslim advocate Mohamed Rage said the state Equal Opportunity Commission needs to investigate and take action against the JBS Swift and Company plant.

Muslim workers at the plant have pushed for accommodations with break times to allow prayer at sunset. The issue has sparked proaests [sic], walkouts and mass firings.[Link]

Neb. group to reach out to Grand Island, Neb.

2008-09-23T23:49:00.001-05:00

A state commission responsible for investigating discrimination claims says it plans to reach out to a community caught up in a prayer dispute.

Muslim workers at Grand Island's JBS Swift & Co. plant have been asking for accommodations with break times to allow prayer at sunset. The issue has sparked protests by Muslim workers and counterprotests by non-Muslim workers upset about preferential treatment. It also has led to mass firings.

The Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission says it has a responsibility to educate all Nebraska residents. It expects to be doing outreach in Grand Island over the next few weeks. [Link]

TX Employers Accommodate Muslim Religious Needs

2008-09-22T21:24:00.000-05:00

North Texas has half a million Muslims among its population, many of them working in engineering and information technology jobs. According to a recent report in the Dallas Morning News, their employers are starting to recognize and accommodate those employees' religious requirement of praying five times a day facing Mecca.

In Dallas, Texas Instruments has made a prayer room available, American Airlines is allowing use of a multipurpose room for Muslim prayer, and Nortel offers several quiet rooms for the purpose. In Plano, Electronic Data Systems also has a prayer room available. Until now, according to the paper, employees in these workplaces would use tactics such as ducking down into their cubicles to pray, or finding an empty stairway.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which enforces the nation's employment discrimination laws, recently released a comprehensive guide for employers on avoiding religious bias in the workplace. On the question of allowing devout Muslims a place for their daily religious observance, the guide states that if an employee needs to use a quiet area for prayer during break time, the employer should accommodate the request unless it would pose an undue hardship. If the employer allows employees to use the facilities at issue for nonreligious activities not related to work, it may be difficult for the employer to demonstrate that allowing the facilities to be used in the same manner for religious activities is not a reasonable accommodation or poses an undue hardship. [Link]

Soldier's mission of unity comes to deadly end

2008-09-21T22:07:00.000-05:00

Mohsin Naqvi joined the Army to help bridge the divide between America and the Muslim world, and he died for that cause, family and friends said Friday.

Naqvi, a Pakistan native who was married in Albany's al-Fatima Islamic Center three months ago, was among four U.S. Army soldiers killed Wednesday when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in eastern Afghanistan, according to family and friends.

He is survived by his 20-year-old wife, Raazia, and his sister, Tasneem Ali, both of Mechanicville; his brother, Hassan Naqvi, a University at Albany student; and his parents, who live in Newburgh.

"He was like an American ambassador, a bridge, a link," said Aziz Ahsan, a close family friend and attorney in Fishkill.

A service is expected to be held for Naqvi early next week at the al-Fatima mosque, with burial to follow in the center's cemetery. Specifics for the funeral could not be obtained late Friday afternoon, as Naqvi's body had not yet returned to the United States.

The second lieutenant had joined the Army Reserve near Newburgh days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks because he felt his background made him uniquely qualified to try and reconcile differences between America and the Muslim world, family and friends said.

Naqvi fought discrimination from military leaders while participating in basic training and during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. One time, officers asked him the origin of his last name and if he was fighting on the right side, his brother recalled Friday. [Link]

New film based on post-9/11 paranoid racism

2008-09-19T22:36:00.000-05:00

The shocking story of an American Sikh man murdered by xenophobic patriots after the World Trade Centre attacks is hitting close to home tonight, at the homegrown film’s Vancouver premiere.

Raj Paul Dillon, the Surrey-based journalist and filmmaker who produced and directed Sweet Amerika, said while it’s inspired by true events, the plot itself follows a fictional man who is tortured because he is Sikh.

He added that although the film is set in post-9/11 United States, the story of intolerance and immigrant life is applicable here.

“Canadians can get the same message as Americans (and) immigrants and mainstream Westerners, that racial profiling happens,” he said.

“But how do we have a dialogue and a debate and … get over the ignorance that create this violence and hate?”

He said that for the South Asian audience, the film provides acknowledgment that these things do happen and shows how they can unite and combat systemic discrimination. [Link]

Sweet Amerika keys on 9/11-linked racism in NY

2008-09-19T22:35:00.000-05:00

"Who are the real Americans?"

It's a question asked in the tag line of the movie Sweet Amerika, filmed by Surrey's R. (Raj) Paul Dhillon and opening in theatres today (Friday).

The English-language drama focuses on a Sikh shop opener (played by Bollywood veteran Gulshan Glover), whose life in New York is rocked by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A gang of thugs seeks revenge by taking the peace-loving Bobby (Glover) hostage and threatening horrible things, like hanging him in front of his grocery store and setting the corpse ablaze. [Link]

Dallas County changes policy to settle turban case

2008-09-18T22:44:00.000-05:00

Dallas County has revised its security-screening procedures to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of a Sikh man who was ordered out of a courtroom for refusing to remove his turban, a civil rights group said yesterday.

The new policy announced by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Texas calls for security personnel at all county buildings to allow people wearing religious head coverings or other religious garments to walk through a metal detector without removing the item. If the detector beeps, security personnel will use a hand-held detector or conduct a private search.

The policy was developed by the county based on models provided by the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. The new led to the dismissal last week of a case brought by the ACLU on behalf of Amardeep Singh.

According to the suit filed last year, Singh was ordered out of a Justice of the Peace courtroom under threat of arrest in June 2006. Singh had gone to defend himself from a traffic ticket when he was told by court personnel and Judge Albert Bernard Cercone to remove his "hat." When Singh tried to explain that wearing a turban is a required religious practice for members of the Sikh faith, the judge and court officials refused to hear his explanation.

Sikhs compare the turban to yarmulkes worn by many Orthodox Jews and hijabs worn by many Muslim women and say removing it is humiliating. There are an estimated 500,000 Sikhs in the U.S., according to their legal defense group.

"The Constitution protects the right of Mr. Singh and every citizen to access their government without compromising their religious beliefs," said Lisa Graybill, legal director of the ACLU Foundation of Texas. "By applying this new policy, the county and Judge Cercone will help ensure that right is respected in Dallas County."

Last year, officials in Lawrenceville, Ga. revised their policy after a Sikh man was kept from entering the court because of his turban, according to documents in the lawsuit.

A federal guideline also revised last year allows air passengers to keep on headwear such as turbans at screening checkpoints. It gives airport screeners the option to pat down headwear at the metal detector if a passenger does not want to remove it for personal reasons. [Link]

Sikhs and Arab Still Suffer Since 9/11

2008-09-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

Four days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Balbir Sodhi decided to plant flowers outside his convenience store in Mesa, Arizona. Frank Roque, an aircraft mechanic, drove up to the store and shot Sodhi five times from his pickup truck. Roque committed the first lethal hate crime in a wave of hate crimes against Sikhs in the United States that exploded after 9/11, but it is a wave that has continued for the past seven years, from Arizona to Queens.

The morning before he was killed, Sodhi had traveled to Costco and donated all the money he had on him - $75 to a charity for 9/11 victims. But when Roque was arrested, he yelled, “I am a patriot.” His words would haunt the Sikh-American community long afterwards. Less than a year later, Sodhi’s brother was shot and killed when he was driving a cab.

Queens residents honored the seven-year anniversary of 9/11 last Thursday by offering solidarity to Sikh and Arab-American communities, whose members faced significant turmoil and violence since the terrorist attacks. Director Valarie Kaur and community organizations in Jackson Heights gave a screening of a film, “Divided We Fall,” at the Jackson Heights Jewish Center, the documentary chronicled Kaur’s attempts to document the violence against and resilience of South Asians and Arab-Americans after 9/11. A discussion on building community in the face of violence and racism followed.

“Jackson Heights is a living testament to what is possible in America,” Kaur said, looking into her multiethnic audience. “I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be today.”

Kaur originally decided to try and record the violence affecting her community when she first heard about Frank Roque and Balbir Sodhi on television. She was only 20 years old, but she traveled the United States for years in a Honda Civic with her brothers, asking questions, taking notes and telling stories.

To date, there have been more than 1,000 hate crimes against the Sikh community in the United States. Sikhism is the fifth largest world religion, and about half a million Sikhs live in the United States. The religion began in the Punjab region of South Asia, in what is now India and Pakistan. To demonstrate their commitment to spiritual sisterhood and brotherhood, Sikhs do not cut their hair and generally wear it in a turban. After the terrorist attacks, many Sikhs were misperceived to be Muslim and faced similar persecution through hate crimes, vandalism of religious institutions and verbal harassment.

Hate crimes and misperceptions are no joke in Queens, where South Asian and Arab-American communities suffered immensely after 9/11. Last June, hundreds of Sikhs marched through Richmond Hill to protest harassment and violence against Sikh children in city schools. That month, two children had their hair forcibly cut, and another child was assaulted when a student punched him with a key and tried to remove his turban. The Sikh Coalition said that of the 400 Sikh children they surveyed, more than 60 percent said they faced violence or harassment at school. [Link]

NPR: Being Young And Arab In Post-Sept. 11 America

2008-09-16T23:15:00.000-05:00

In his new book, How Does It Feel To Be A Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, Moustafa Bayoumi delves into the rich, complicated lives of seven men and women who are completely different in every way but two: They're all from Brooklyn, and they're all Arab. Their stories are American stories, with kaleidoscopic views.

We meet Sami, a Christian who signed up for the Marines. He was on a bus headed to basic training when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked. After two deployments to Iraq, his sense of identity developed from amorphous into impassioned.

Syrian-born Rasha comes from a secularized Muslim family. As part of the xenophobic response to Sept. 11, she and her family were rounded up in a raid and imprisoned for months alongside criminals.

Yasmin was a devout 15-year-old Muslim and a popular kid at her high school. When she couldn't attend a school dance due to her religious beliefs, she was pressured to resign from the student council. (Yasmin is now in law school.)

The author, himself, is young, Arab and Brooklynese. He began writing the book at a moment when hate crimes spiked 1,700 percent against Arabs and Muslims, and when a USA Today/Gallup poll found that 39 percent of Americans believed all Muslims — including U.S. citizens — should carry special IDs. [Link]

Muslims have 'victim mentality'

2008-09-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

British Muslims are guilty of a "victim mentality" and should take greater responsibility for their lives, a Muslim Labour MP has argued.

Sadiq Khan also said more British Muslims must tackle sexism, learn English and condemn forced marriages.

The representative for Tooting, south London, made his comments in a report for the Fabian Society think tank.

Muslim youth organisation the Ramadhan Foundation said Mr Khan was out of touch with grassroots Muslims. [Link]

Documentary chronicles post-9/11 hate crimes

2008-09-16T23:04:00.001-05:00

A documentary that chronicles hate violence in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks will be screened tonight at Irvington High School.

"Divided We Fall" is a full-length documentary created by Valarie Kaur, who, as a 20-year-old Stanford student, began traveling the country after 9/11 to document hate crimes against her fellow Sikhs as well as against Muslims and Arabs.

Observant Sikh men, who wear turbans and grow long beards, faced increased prejudice after the attacks from people who assumed they were Muslims.

The 100-minute movie explores the lives of several hate-crime victims in the five years following 9/11 and includes commentaries from scholars, lawyers, and legislators about race, religion, and what it means to be fully accepted as an American.

The film "reminds us that all of our neighbors deserve full membership in our community," said Jack Weinstein, director of Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit that helps teachers educate students about intolerance. [Link]

France disallows veil to Muslim woman

2008-09-15T22:48:00.000-05:00

France's supreme court upheld a decree that refused citizenship to a Muslim woman from Morocco, ruling that she had failed to assimilate French culture. It was ruled that her radical practice of Islam is incompatible with French values.

On June 27, 2008, the Council of State (Conseil d’Etat), the French Supreme Administrative Court, upheld a Prime Minister’s decree refusing citizenship to a Moroccan woman who was married to a French national and had two French children. The Council’s decision was based on the grounds that the woman lacked assimilation to French society because of her radical practice of religion, deemed incompatible with the essential values of the French community, in particular equality of the genders. These findings were supported by elements in the court file that the Moroccan woman was a Salafist Muslim and wore the Burqa. [Link]

US workers claim Ramadan observance led to wrongful terminations

2008-09-14T22:47:00.000-05:00

Muslim union workers at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Greeley, Colorado have filed grievances and wrongful termination claims stemming from alleged employment conflicts with their observance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Initially there were attempts to work out a deal with Swift that would allow night shift workers to take a meal break before 9 pm to accommodate their fasting from sunrise to sunset. On September 5, when requests for a break at sunset were denied, approximately 220 workers coming mostly from Somalia and other African nations staged a walk-out in protest. All of the protesters were suspended and a large percentage were later fired. According to an official from Swift, the number of workers fired was 101....

In 2007, Swift dealt with a similar issue at a meat-packing plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, where approximately 120 workers abruptly quit after they were denied the opportunity to pray at sunset. Workers at that plant had said they were verbally and physically harassed, which led some to file complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), raising provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. The dispute in Colorado follows a situation at a Tyson Foods plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where last month the company agreed to give workers the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr as a paid day off instead of Labor Day. [Link]

Will America Tolerate Anti-Muslim Discrimination?

2008-09-14T22:45:00.000-05:00

It's been seven years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and many young American Muslims are convinced that much of American society views them with growing hostility. They're right.

A 2007 Zogby poll discovered that 76 percent of young ArabAmericans report experiencing discrimination. A CNN poll from the same year found that 53 percent of Americans believe conflict between Islam and Christianity is "inevitable," up from 45 percent in 2003.

These hardening attitudes affect the job opportunities of American Muslims. One study from 2004 sent out 6,000 fictitious resumes — all similarly qualified but with different, ethnically identifiable names — to employers across California. If your name was Heidi Mackenzie, you had the best chance of being called back. And the worst name to have? Abdul-Aziz Mansour.

It's not surprising, then, that earnings of Arab and Muslim men have declined relative to the general population since 2001.

And profiling continues to be a problem. The Justice Department is seeking to enshrine its practice in national security investigations, allowing the FBI to invade the privacy of Americans and open cases against people without the benefit of evidence or probable cause. Such a policy would disproportionately affect the Arab and Muslim American communities, but we should all be concerned.

The hostility toward young American Muslims is unwarranted.

Do they seethe with resentment and hatred of the United States? Are they dire threats to our national security? A terrorist recruiter's dream? Not at all. After three years of research on this issue, I can tell you that I heard young American Muslims talk about a great many things, but not once did I hear them express support for Osama bin Laden, wish harm on their fellow Americans or plot the takeover of the United States — all accusations leveled with startling frequency at the American Muslim community.

Young Arab Muslim Americans spend their time and energy worrying about landing a good job, finding a mate and getting married, achieving happiness and fulfilling their potential.

Most are critical of American foreign policy (as are many other Americans). Among the more pious, topics in Islam occupy a good deal of conversation, and these discussions often center on how best to refute the stereotypes and misconceptions people have of their faith.

At the same time we also need to record the victories and successes. In many corners of the country, Islam is increasingly understood as an American religion. Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Andre Carson, D-Ind. — both Muslim — have been elected to Congress. There is more genuine interest in the Arab world than ever.

The young people I talk to feel this push-and-pull of acceptance and rejection clearly.

Where does that leave us, seven years after Sept. 11? In some ways, we seem to be teetering on the cusp, ready to tilt toward a society that recognizes the bedrock principle of equality for all or one where discrimination is not just tolerated in the workplace but enforced through the law.

Osama bin Laden is responsible for the terrorist attacks, and for that he should be brought to justice. But we are the ones responsible for deciding what kind of nation we want to live in.

That choice is ours. [Link]

DOJ Fact Sheet: Protecting the Privacy and Civil Liberties of Americans

2008-09-14T20:41:00.000-05:00

As the nation’s primary law enforcement agency, the Justice Department strives to be a model for ensuring that Americans' privacy and civil liberties are forcefully protected in all the Department's counterterrorism and law enforcement efforts. Below are some of the advances made since 9/11:

* Since 9/11, the Department has investigated more than 800 incidents involving violence, threats, vandalism or arson against Arab Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, South Asian Americans or other individuals perceived to be of Middle Eastern origin.
* Federal charges in these investigations have been brought against 42 defendants, with 35 convictions to date. The Department’s Civil Rights Division has coordinated with state and local prosecutors in more than 150 non-federal criminal cases.
* The Department developed and issued guidance to federal agencies in June 2003 expressly prohibiting racial profiling in federal law enforcement practices.
* The Department appointed its first Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer in February 2006. This officer actively participates in Department policymaking, ensuring regard for privacy and civil liberties at the earliest stages of Departmental proposals.
* The Privacy and Civil Liberties Office also participates in public outreach activities and works closely with the Terrorist Screening Center, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security to address watch list redress issues and other matters.
* The FBI created the Office of Integrity and Compliance in 2007 to ensure FBI compliance with laws, rules, and procedures, not only in national security activities, but in all FBI activities.
* The Department’s National Security Division in 2007 launched a comprehensive oversight initiative and created a new oversight office to ensure that FBI national security investigations comply with the nation’s laws, rules, and regulations, including privacy and civil liberties.
* The Department for the first time has begun conducting regular, comprehensive reviews of national security activities at FBI Headquarters and field offices, completing 15 such reviews in 2007. The Department plans to complete another 17 such reviews by the end of 2008.
* The Department implemented dramatic reforms in 2007 and 2008 to address problems in the FBI’s use of National Security Letters; increased the number of FISA accuracy and minimization reviews; and began conducting reviews of all referrals by the FBI to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board to detect patterns that may require changes in policy, training, or oversight. [Link]

US ashamed over killing of Sikhs in hate crime in America: US Embassy

2008-09-13T20:49:00.000-05:00

Public Diplomacy Officers from US Embassy Lisa Swenarski said on Wednesday that US is ashamed over the killing of the Sikhs in America post September 11 due to hate crime.
“We feel great shame over the killing of the Sikhs in US post 9/11 due to hate crime,” said Swenarski while talking to media at Amritsar today.

A delegation of American embassy is currently on a visit to Amritsar under “America Day” program initiated by the US Embassy in New Delhi.

“I believe the Sikhs have been killed in hate crime due to US peoples’ ignorance about different cultures and religions,” she said.

Swenarski also gave assurance that the US government is taking various measures to acquaint their security officers with the identity of Sikhs and their five religious symbols. She said that the transport authority had developed a video featuring Sikh employees and the significance of their five religious symbols.

The US embassy employee also said that she knew the first Sikh gentleman who became victim of hate crime in Texas, there was outpour of support from his neighbors.

People including children raised money even by car wash and when his widow arrived in America she was received with much love and affection.

She said Sikhs are most welcome in US. [Link]

First for NZ: Sikh cop dons turban on duty

2008-09-13T20:45:00.000-05:00

An India-born Sikh police officer has become the first in New Zealand to don a turban while on duty, breaking away from the tradition of the force.

Constable Jagmohan Malhi of the Nelson city in central New Zealand fulfilled his late father's dream by wearing a turban on duty, recently adopted by police as part of uniform.

Malhi, who grew up wearing a turban, had shaved off his beard and moustache "because of peer pressure", he said, adding that he also shaved his head three years ago when he graduated from police training college, the local media reported.

When Malhi's father, who wanted him to grow his hair again, died last year, he decided to fulfill his wish and launched his own personal campaign to have the protocols changed. The police hierarchy agreed too. [Link]

Kirpan used to threaten someone in a schoolyard

2008-09-13T20:44:00.000-05:00

Parents of students attending a high school in LaSalle are outraged after a 13-year-old Sikh boy pulled his kirpan on another student this week.

Montreal police say the boy became frustrated with two other students during recess on Thursday, and waved the ceremonial dagger at them in a threatening gesture.

Police have pressed charges.

In March 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Sikh students are allowed to wear kirpans to school for religious reasons. [Link]

Festival raises awareness about Sikh culture

2008-09-12T20:52:00.000-05:00

The entrance sign to the Sikh temple in Fairfield was damaged by bullets so often, members finally decided to let it be.

"We used to change the sign, but haven't done it for more than a year," said Gurpreet Dhugga. "Our mission isn't accomplished yet."

That "mission" is to educate a public that - ever since 9/11 - sees a turban and thinks terrorist.

"We need to educate people about the Punjabi culture," Dhugga said. "There's a lot of ignorance about this."

The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and subsequent bigotry led Dhugga and a few others to start the Punjabi Heritage Festival. More than 2,000 visitors attended last year's program and Dhugga expects at least that many Saturday for the encore presentation of entertainment, education and enlightening activities at the fairgrounds.

‘Respect for All’ is message of mayor’s anti-bullying rules

2008-09-11T20:56:00.000-05:00

After more than four years of refusing to deal comprehensively with bullying in schools, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced a major new initiative to combat the problem that they have minimized in the past, but now acknowledge impedes “our students’ ability to learn.”

The two officials were surrounded at a hastily called press conference on Wed., Sept. 3, by advocates of the Dignity in All Schools Act (DASA), a 2004 City Council bill that mandated most of what Bloomberg is implementing only now. He vetoed that earlier bill, dismissing it then as “silly” and “illegal,” and the Council did not take him to court after it overrode the veto, but the mayor still refused to implement the law....

[P]ressure from the Sikh Coalition may have been the key to turning it into the chancellor’s regulations announced last week. Amardeep Singh, executive director of the coalition, said a survey of 400 Sikh students in New York City Schools found 65 percent had faced bias-based harassment, such as being called “terrorist or Osama,” and that 20 percent had been “touched or hit.” The coalition demanded the regulations in a June 30 march through Richmond Hill, Queens, compelling Klein finally to promise them action.

“We made substantial progress,” Singh said. “For the necessary sea change to take place, we still have work to do.” The group wants to see public reporting by category of harassment victims, something the mayor said would be done but which Singh said is not explicit in the regulations.

Singh also said he and his group had absolutely no problem with Sikh children being taught to respect gays and lesbians.

“We believe in equality for all,” he said, decrying the idea that “anybody’s dignity would be denigrated.” He noted that two Sikh members of the Canadian Parliament voted for same-sex marriage to the consternation of Sikh leaders in India but not in their home districts. [Link]

Discrimination follows devastation

2008-09-10T21:01:00.000-05:00

The nation came together after 9/11. Unfortunately, it came together to discriminate against its perceived enemies.

"I stand for America all the way," shouted 42-year-old Frank Roque as he pulled up in his pickup truck on Sept. 15, 2001 and shot Balbir Singh Sodhi five times at a suburban gas station in Arizona.

What did Sodhi do to deserve such an end?

He wore a turban and sported a beard.

Sodhi wasn't a Muslim. He wasn't Arab. He was a Sikh from the Punjab region in India and as a Sikh he was following religious law by wearing a turban and keeping a beard.

Sept. 11 hurt this nation deeply. It shook the country's foundations to the core and changed the course of American history. Our foreign policy began to take on a different tone and the attack forced Americans to think about their place in the world community.

But 9/11 changed things for Sikhs like me in a different way.

It was as if overnight we became fundamentally different. And we felt it.

Suddenly stares and dirty looks became commonplace. People began to whisper around us when we walked by. Some taunted us with racial slurs. Others thought it would be better to vandalize our temples or honk at us while driving. Some like Roque took to murder.

I was only in sixth grade at the time, but I was starting to feel the changes in my own home as well.

That day itself we were flooded with phone calls by relatives and family friends advising one another to stay at home and not venture out unless absolutely necessary. If there was anything to be done, any place to go, my mom would go and my Dad and I would stay at home. We put baseball caps in our car so just in case "anything goes wrong" my dad and I could take off our turbans and put the caps on.

Sikh community leaders immediately released press statements condemning the brutal attack on their nation. We began to hold inter-faith conferences where we could explain to the public that we were Sikhs and had nothing to do with the terrorists behind 9/11.

We are not Muslim. We are not Arab. We are not from the Middle East. Our religion is different as is our home country and language.

But even if we were Muslim, it shouldn't matter. People of a certain faith or skin color shouldn't be blamed for an attack carried out by a small number of extremists.[Link]

NYC Schools Launch Anti-Bully Campaign

2008-09-09T22:22:00.001-05:00

As thousands of kids head back to New York City schools this week, the city unveiled a new plan to protect students from bullies and keep parents in the loop.

This week, middle and high school students are heading home with a "Respect for All" brochure, that teaches them what constitutes a bias-attack - which is harassment driven by prejudice.

The city announced new steps to stop the attacks, including a tracking system to monitor all reported bias incidents.

"Up till now, we really had no way of knowing if harassment in our schools was getting better or getting worse," Mayor Bloomberg said.

So starting this year, parents will be able to go on the Department of Education website, look up their child's school, and find out how many bias incidents have been reported.

Attacks in school on Sikh kids were getting so bad in parts of Queens - specifically, students getting their hair cut off, that the community held a protest rally. [Link]

Canadian Air Force gets its first turbanned officer

2008-09-09T22:16:00.000-05:00

Soldier comes from long line of Sikh warriors

As the first member of the Canadian Air Force to wear a turban, 2nd Lieut. Jasbir Singh Tatla figures he's a good role model to issue a call to arms to his fellow Sikhs.

And if you want to honour the Sikh tradition of being warriors, Tatla said, don't get involved in gangs and criminal activity. Instead, sign up with the Canadian Forces, where you can make a real difference and fight -- for your country.

"It's a great honour to be the first member of the Air Force to wear a turban," said Tatla, 35, of Surrey. "It is something that is hard to express in words, but it gives me a chance to set an example for my community....

"My whole family background is army," said Tatla, who is married with two sons, aged three and eight. "So it was a natural thing for me to do." [Link]

Students gather to watch documentary on post–Sept. 11 hate crimes

2008-09-09T22:12:00.000-05:00

Some Sikh, Arab and Muslim Americans became targets of hate crimes in the weeks following Sept. 11 for wearing a turban and a beard, characteristics Americans began to associate with terrorists.

To raise awareness of these crimes, a documentary titled “Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath” was shown to about 50 people in the Reitz Union Auditorium on Monday.

Valarie Kaur, the filmmaker, traveled across the U.S. to interview victims of attacks when she was a college student.

“They were described as isolated incidents, but they were not isolated,” Kaur said in the documentary. “They were happening everywhere across America.”

The movie’s message prompted a subsequent discussion about diversity and how people should come to understand and accept other cultures.

“I understand why people want to be left alone,” said Farah Gulaid, a nutrition senior. “But I want to tell you. Just educate people, and let them know who you are.”

Tamara Cohen, UF’s director of Multicultural and Diversity Affairs, said popular culture complicates the image of an American. People want to claim a monolithic vision of America even though demographics are changing, she said.

Kaur’s reason for making the documentary was simple.

“So other people don’t look at the turban and see fear, hatred, something laughable, something less than human,” she said. “So people don’t look at the turban and see an enemy where I see a brother.” [Link]

Mosque fire may be 'racially motivated attack'

2008-09-02T22:06:00.001-05:00

A fire which destroyed a church building earmarked for a new mosque may be a racially-motivated arson attack.

The former St Matthew's Church, in Boultham Park Road, Lincoln, was severely damaged when the blaze broke out in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Muslim leaders were hoping to turn the grade II-listed premises - vacant since 2000 - into a mosque after being granted planning consent in July.

But it is now feared their plans may have been destroyed by a hate-fuelled attack by arsonists. [Link]

School sorry for refusing Sikh student

2008-09-02T21:46:00.000-05:00

AN exclusive private school has apologised to a Sikh student it refused to enrol because of its strict uniform rules as part of an out of court settlement.

The student's family launched a landmark case last year after Brisbane's Ormiston College told them their 12-year-old son could only attend school if he cut his hair and did not wear his turban.

Uncut hair and turbans are both strict requirements of the Sikh religion.

The family, who cannot be named for legal reasons, lodged a claim with the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland against the college and its headmaster Brett Webster.

The family's lawyer Scott McDougall today said his clients were happy with the confidential settlement, which included a public apology.

"The main thing they wanted was broader understanding within the community to the importance of being able to choose an education whilst maintaining your religious beliefs and identity," Mr McDougall told AAP.

"We're hopeful that other schools will take note and it won't be repeated upon the Sikh community."

He said the boy was attending another private school where he was allowed to wear his turban and was doing well.

Mr Webster said the school was pleased the case was now resolved.

"What we have done is we've agreed to look at our policies and that's a commitment we will take seriously," he said.

"And if there's a need to modify our enrolment or uniform policies to remain aligned with the Anti-Discrimination Act then we will do so." [Link]

Head scarf case may remain veiled

2008-09-01T16:14:00.000-05:00

The outcome of a complaint filed by a Tulsa Muslim teenager against Abercrombie & Fitch may never be made public.

The girl ... filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last month alleging that the popular clothier's Woodland Hills store refused to hire her because she wears a religiously mandated head scarf....

EEOC attorney Michelle Robertson said her office cannot comment on any charge that is still open because of confidentiality requirements of the Civil Rights Act, and cannot even confirm that the case was filed.

In general, she said, when a complaint is filed, it is assigned to an investigator who gets information from the employer and elsewhere and makes a recommendation to the area director.

In 5 percent of the cases, there is enough evidence to determine that discrimination occurred, she said.

Nearly all of the cases with evidence of discrimination are settled out of court and remain confidential.

Only 1 percent of those 5 percent wind up in court, where they become public, she said. [Link]

Court: Passengers can challenge no-fly list

2008-08-28T13:05:00.000-05:00

Critics of the government's secret no-fly list scored a potentially important victory Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that would-be passengers can ask a judge and jury to decide whether their inclusion on the list violates their rights.

In a 2-1 ruling, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a suit by a former Stanford University student who was detained and handcuffed in 2005 as she was about to board a plane to her native Malaysia.

The ruling is apparently the first to allow a challenge to the no-fly list to proceed in a federal trial court, said the plaintiff's lawyer, Marwa Elzankaly.

The decision would allow individuals to demand information from the government, present evidence on why they should not have been on the list, and take the case to a jury, Elzankaly said.

The ruling means that "someone who finds it's likely that their name has been placed on a government watch list will get their day in court," Elzankaly said. [Link]

Clueless crossword

2008-08-28T00:50:00.000-05:00

ALTHOUGH THIS is perhaps not the most pressing issue of the day, Saturday's [Boston Globe] crossword showed how far we still have to go in terms of awareness of other cultures and religions. The answer to the clue "Hindu sect member" was "Sikh." Sikhs are not members of a Hindu sect, any more than Christians are members of a Jewish sect (the relationships are similar).

Sikhism is a monotheistic and egalitarian religious tradition, with approximately 23 million to 25 million adherents around the world, placing it ninth among world religions.

Yet since Sept. 11, 2001, Sikhs have regularly been misidentified as Muslim, and have suffered from violence and harassment like Muslims. Identifying them as Hindus is no better.

Education is the key to understanding the many ways of being religious, whether here or in other parts of the world. Given the current world situation, this understanding is more crucial than ever for everyone, religious or not. [Link]

I AM A PROUD TURBANED PERSON

2008-08-28T00:44:00.000-05:00

This headpiece is a marker of the Sikh identity and a symbol of a religious belief system despite the desire to fit in, where as by creating the Khalsa (an order of the pure ones) to uphold universal brotherhood, Guru Gobind Singh gave the Sikhs the 5 K's in a baptismal rite: Kes (long hair), Kangha (comb to keep the long hair neat), Kara (an iron bracelet), Kachcha (shorts) and Kirpan (sword). These outward symbols were meant to remind them of their principles.

From the day I got old mature enough to know myself I got long hair on my head, and small Turban. That’s how I grew up and that was my belief as a Sikh. I used to go to the temple almost every day when I was a child. The temple priest was really good friend of mine and he taught me how to read Sri Guru Granth Sahib JI (Holy Book of Sikhs). I started wearing Turban. I was a happy person. Then 1989 I moved to Toronto Canada and started my high School. A new country, a new language and new people. Every day I faced new problems. Some of the white people started making fun of me by calling me paki, some of them touched my Turban, and at that time I got English-speaking problem. Few times I complained to my class teacher, but nothing happened. I felt weaker and weaker inside of me, I got fed up, tired from all the problems I was facing.

Finally I asked my cousin if I could cut my hair. So he took me to barber shop and cut my hair. I felt so sad, I cried, but it was too late. From that day my mind was never in peace. I felt like I am missing one of my body part. Missing something in my life. That started bothering me so much....

Finally the most important thing of wearing turban is following The Way of Sikhism. Since I am a Sikh I am proud of my Religion that taught me to be pure or being natural. Sikhism taught me to let my hair grow, and in order to keep my hair clean I have to cover my hair all the time that’s why I am a Proud Turbaned Person. And I am happy once again. [Link]

Arabic Names a Hinder in Swedish Banks

2008-08-26T21:50:00.000-05:00

When Ahmad Waizy from Lindome tried to complete an international payment transaction on Skandiabanken’s website, he was unable to complete the payment as the bank rejected his first name.

After ringing the bank, he was told that Skandiabanken’s online payments system has a bar against names that could be of Muslim origin. Over 4000 people have Ahmad as a first name in Sweden today.

The Ombudsman against ethnic discrimination (DO) has asked Skandiabanken to justify its policy. Skandiabanken’s head of press Lena Hök told Svenska Dagbladet newspaper that the bank was only following the European Union’s sanctions list. This means that certain common Arabic names such as Hussein and Mohammed are affected.

However, Hök said that Skandiabanken welcomed the official report to the Ombudsman as they need a clear directive on the current status. [Link]

The multi-faith contingent

2008-08-21T13:06:00.001-05:00

What can an American Sikh learn from the Jewish people's Zionist state for his own people's aspirations to set up an independent homeland in Punjab? What do Seventh-Day Adventists think of a renewed Jewish state in the Holy Land?
These were some of the questions batted around by members of an eight-member multi-faith contingent of US policy makers active on Capitol Hill that included, in addition to a Sikh and an Adventist, a Hindu, an Evangelical Christian and a Chinese-American.
The tour, which passed through Sderot as well as Arab villages, was organized by Project Interchange, an institute of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) aimed at giving influential Americans a better understanding of Israel.
James Standish, who represents the world-wide Seventh-Day Adventist Church in the US Congress, the White House and the US's executive agencies, said that unlike most Evangelical Christians, members of his faith do not see the establishment of the State of Israel in theological or prophetic terms.
"For us it is more of a humanitarian event," said Standish.
"After centuries during which the Jewish people were stateless, after the Holocaust there were obvious historical and religious reasons for establishing a Jewish state.
"Obviously, we also hope that there will be a final settlement so that both the Jews and the Palestinian people will have a state."
Standish added that Seventh-Day Adventists felt some affinity for the Jewish people since they both shared the same day of rest.
"Just like Jews, Adventists don't work on the Sabbath. We also don't eat pork or shellfish."
Rajbir Singh Datta, national director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), said that while Sikhs did not have an official stance on Zionism, "we do have something to learn from the Jewish people's challenges in reconciling religion with democracy," said Datta.
"People are not sure what a future Sikh state would look like and how religion would be a part of the governance of the state. Jews have already had experience with these issues."
Sikhs harbor an aspiration to build their own state in Punjab, a territory between India and Pakistan, that would have a Sikh majority and be run in accordance with the religion's principles.
Datta said that the Sikhs also shared the modern Jewish state's strong military ethos.
"Sikhs can definitely be considered a martial race. Although we make up about one percent of the population in India, we constitute between 10% and 15% of the standing army. During British rule the numbers were even higher at between 27% and 30%.
"Like the Jewish people we have had to fight to defend ourselves against our Hindu and Muslim neighbors."
Reverend Richard Cizik, the most senior staff member of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 43,000 churches with 27 million adherents, said that as an Evangelical Christian he felt a "familial" connection with the Jewish people.
"Besides the fact that my paternal grandmother was Jewish, I feel a special love and connection with the Jewish people as a Christian," said Cizik.
"I am neither pre-millennial nor dispensationalist like some of my fellow Evangelicals. Nevertheless, I feel an intrinsic identification with the Jewish people because of my commitment to biblical truth, that people of other faiths might not have. After all, Christianity is an outcome of Judaism.
"At a personal level you can't love Jesus and not love the Jewish people, otherwise it is a violation of your Christianity. All the Christian bigotry and hatred directed against the Jewish people throughout the ages is a sad aberration."
Richard Foltin, director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the AJC, who headed the multi-faith mission, said that Project Interchange worked very hard to give as many different perspectives as possible on the ongoing conflict between Israelis and their neighbors.
"We try to expose people on our missions to the 'big picture,'" said Foltin.
Some of the points on the mission's itinerary include briefings on the legal rights of ethics minorities, the Arab Israeli community, the impact of immigration on Israel's political system, the future of settlements, a tour of the security fence and a tour of Sderot.
"In addition to presenting the mission with a sophisticated and complex picture of Israeli society, we also try to put together a mission with a diverse mix of outlooks and perspectives.
"If the mission members don't leave here with more questions than when they came we have not done our job."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218710387356&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

also posted on http://ethnicconfusionbritain.blogware.com/blog