Shaminder Singh Puri | Warsaw, Poland Posted: 09:47 PM | November 04, 2011

Disgracing Sikh Travelers in Polish Airports

Warsaw, Poland - A Sikh has taken the Polish Airport Security to court for disgracing Sikh travelers passing through Poland.

The issue began in October 2009 when Sikhs travelling through Polish airports were being told to remove their turbans for security check. The turbans were then placed on the x-ray scanners and passed through the machines.

Requests to use handheld scanners or pat-down chemical tests were not accepted. The guards seemed to take delight in telling many helpless passengers: “Take it off, else you will not fly.”

In my case, as a fluent Polish speaker who graduated from a Polish university more than 30 years ago, and having worn my turban all these years, I was not prepared to sit back and take it.

After explaining many times to the hierarchy of the Polish Border Guard, in a series of letters and in several face-to-face meetings, I decided that I could not rest.

Warsaw has many Sikhs, with a Sikh gurudwara that is officially registered as a formal place of worship. The Sikh community was outraged but seemed to be helpless.

I wrote many letters to many concerned people, including the Polish ambassador in India and the Polish ambassador in the United Kingdom. I recruited the support of many senior Polish officials and many colleagues that I had studied with. All attempts to reach some form of dialogue with the Komandant of the Border Guard failed.

Even with interventions from the Polish Under Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who had been a delegate at the Polish-Indian Trade Summit in September 2010, and from the highest officials in India, such as Preneet Kaur, the Minister of State for External Affairs, no respect was given to the Sikh Community’s distress.

I was unable to move the Polish authorities.

Consequently, with support from the Helsinki Foundation of Poland, and with pro bono support from one of the best Polish legal houses, we launched a court case against the Komandant of the Border Guard Service, which conducts security checks at airports.

The case gained a lot of publicity for the issue, and a lot of sympathy, too.

Most interestingly, as the case developed, the Airport Security Guard turned vindictive. With increasing publicity about the injustice, security officials became emboldened to demand stripping off Sikh turbans.

The official Web site of the Association of the Border Guard began carrying insulting and demeaning discussions, some of them directed personally at me.

To cap it all off, one of the authors in the e-forum of the Border Guard set up a discussion challenging me by name, yet hiding behind his anonymity in the e-discussion!

The case has had four hearings so far. The last one was held on Oct. 26.

The judge viewed videos of about five incidents in which I had been stopped by the Warsaw Airport Border Guards. The video clearly showed that I followed all the usual steps in preparing to go through the security check. When I walked through scanner, guards can be seen stopping me. They ask me to accompany them to a separate cabin. I collect my belongings and accompany them to the cabin.

The cabin does not have a camera. Off camera, the guards began to harass me, demanding that I remove my turban. I insisted that they first check me with a handheld detector. They ignored my requests, and I was forced to remove my turban.

In another video, I am seen refusing to go into the cabin, asking to be checked in the public area. And then, if there is no alarm, be allowed to continue on with my legitimate journey. The guards are seen ignoring this request. The situation runs on for more than 30 minutes, and I miss my flight. I continued to refuse to remove my turban.

The Judge did not make any comment at the hearing, and adjourned until Dec. 14 when a final video footage of another, very serious escalation of the action by the border guards will be shown. One of the guards will be seen conspiring with another guard to pointedly harass me - which they did.

I am seeking an apology from the Border Guard Service, a payment € 6,000 to a child leukaemia research charity and implementation of a new policy to use nonintrusive airport security methods for Sikhs, which do not infringe on their human rights.

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The author was born in London in 1947, and educated in Poland. He is working as a chief engineer for a private sector investment project in Jordan, and recently was an advisor to the European Union’s Coal Sector Support Programme for the Ukraine. His work takes him all over the world, and frequently to Poland. He can be reached at ShammyPuri@aol.com.

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