A comprehensive report on the state of civil rights of the Sikh nation shows the scope of shared discrimination that Sikhs face around the world is greater than previously thought.

The ‘First Global Sikh Civil Rights Report 2008,’ released in December by United Sikhs at the first global civil rights conference in New York, documents issues in each of 24 countries. It includes lack of ratification as a separate religion, specifically in India, mischief in the justice system, police brutality, prison brutality, airport harassment, employment discrimination, unfair college admissions, school bullying and general intolerance.

“The focus was on Sikhs because a report like this one does not exist, and it is sorely needed to gauge the problems faced by a community without borders,” the report says. Its intent is “to inform civil rights NGOs (Non-governmental organizations), governmental agencies, law-makers and activist of the problems faced by the Sikh community, and of the impact post 9/11 restrictions have had for Sikhs.”

Journalists and human rights groups have picked up on the substantial amount of information in the report, said Jaspreet Singh, United Sikhs’ staff attorney. “We’ve already had people use it as reference (material).”

Preparing this report also helped United Sikhs become proactive by staying on top of current rights issues. While collecting data on Afghanistan, for example, researchers discovered that more that 200 Sikhs who moved into a gurdwara compound in Kabul sometime after the war began there in late 2001 are still living there in fear, Jaspreet Singh said. This information allowed United Sikhs to raise the issue with other advocacy groups: “What’s being done about these people?”

The report has been an eye-opener for some gurdwara officials and Sikh activists. They told United Sikhs that they were amazed by the breadth of issues and how similar these issues were in so many countries, Jaspreet Singh said.

Hardeep Singh Aulakh, director of the Sikh Children Forum in Fremont, Calif., is one of those activists.
“I never received that much information regarding other countries,” he said. “We have issues in almost every country.” But he is hopeful, he said, that Sikhs would come together over this common cause - civil rights - especially when the extent of the problems are worse than expected.

Hardeep Singh was first in contact with United Sikhs during its relief effort following the massive Indonesian earthquake in Dec. 2004. He put the group in touch with his business contacts there to provide the first truckloads of food and supplies in the devastated areas.

United Sikhs has networked with many people like Hardeep Singh around the world in its nearly 10 years of activism work. A team of about 12 researchers and legal interns contacted civil rights activists, lawyers and community members in these countries to compile information on civil rights.

In general, the report shows that Eastern nations, such as India, which does not recognize Sikhism as a separate religion, are severe human and civil rights violators. Sikhs often live in fear of their safety and are unprotected by grossly ineffective justice systems.

The worst civil rights violators among Western nations, such as France, where Sikhs cannot go to schools with patkas or have official pictures taken with a dastaar, pose problems in their daily lives.

The issues vary slightly from country to country, but they all stem from ignorance about the religious significance of the dastaar and kakaar. Still, many Western nations, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States recognize Sikhism as a separate religion and have slow but affective justice systems in place.

The report also documents a deterioration of civil rights since 9/11, when Sikhs began to be identified with the perpetrators of the attacks. Anyone wearing a turban was suspected of terrorism, which led to unwarranted security searches and increased xenophobia, Jaspreet Singh said. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan persist, media continues to use loose language and images to link all turbaned people with terrorists. And with the worsening economy and increasing unemployment, discrimination issues are likely to surface more often.

“Advocacy helps,” Jaspreet Singh said. “What we wanted to accomplish was to wake people up a little bit and inform them that they do have civil rights.”



Note: Top image: Sikh serve as United Nations peacekeepers, courtesy United Sikhs.

By Anju Kaur
Sikh News Network staff journalist
anjukaur@sikhnn.com