Sikhs India - Online Sikh News Channel

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Another Sikh Controversy

Another controversy has erupted at an Alberta jobsite after a 24 year-old Sikh man from England was ordered to either shave his beard or leave, because of safety concerns. He chose to fly back home earlier this week, saying the experience has turned him off Alberta and adding he doubts he would return if offered another job. He plans to meet with Human Resources officers and union officials with his company, to determine if they will take further action, against TransAlta Corporation.

He was ordered off the job at the Sundance plant, near Wabamun, west of Edmonton, after being told the length of his beard interfered with a respirator and posed a safety risk.

However, for religious reasons, he is not allowed to shave his beard. He had been working at the plant for five weeks and had passed an earlier mask fit test without a problem.

with thanks : mileOcity : link above.

With bitterness and longing - remembering victims of 1984

CHANDIGARH: Twenty-seven years since Indira Gandhi was assassinated, 27 years since 2,700 Sikhs were killed in the capital in the terrible aftermath. As a host of VIPs headed towards the late prime minister's memorial on Monday, thousands of families also remembered their loved ones massacred in the riots - and renewed their pledge to continue the fight for justice. Almost three decades later, justice continues to elude.

"There is no chance of complete justice, but we are fighting for symbolic justice. Some leaders should be punished to send out a strong message,"Supreme Court lawyer Harvinder Singh Phoolka said.

Terming the riots "a blot on the face of the nation and on the justice delivery system", Phoolka said: "If such crimes go unpunished, the future of the nation is in danger."

Passage of time may have dulled the trauma, but family members remember each detail of the violence that took away their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands.

For Nirpreet Kaur, 43, who saw her father Nirmal Singh being burnt alive in the Palam Colony in the Delhi Cantonment area in 1984, "bitterness will persist till the guilty are punished".

There is a story behind her bitterness.

Nirpreet said efforts to seek justice for her father's murder led to "harassment by the police, which branded her a militant."

"As a result, I was jailed twice from 1986 to 1991 and again from 1993 to 1997 under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act," Nirpreet Kaur said.

Acquitted by the sessions court in 1997, she now helps families of other victims seek justice and rehabilitation through her NGO, Justice for Victims.

Pappy Kaur, 42, echoes similar sentiments. She lost 10 of her family members, including her father and elder brother, in the violence in Trilokpuri in east Delhi, one of the worst affected areas during the riots.

"We have not got justice," she said.

with thanks : Times of India : link above for detailed news.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Airport Sikh Turban Check – Unique Court Case In Poland

Warsaw, Poland: A unique Court case is taking place in Poland of a Sikh taking the Polish Airport Security to Court for disgracing Sikh travellers passing through Poland.

The actions started in Oct 2009. Sikhs travelling through Polish airports were being told to remove their turbans for security check – the turbans were then placed on the x-ray scanner and passed through it. No amount of requests that turbans be checked with hand held scanners, or by pat downs were accepted. The Guards seemed to take delight in telling many hapless passengers ” take it off, else you will not fly…”

In my case – as a fluent Polish speaker, having graduated from a Polish University, over 30 years ago and having worn my turban through all these years, I was not prepared to sit back & “take this”. 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 rest. Warsaw has many Sikhs, a SIkh Gurudwara, which is officially registered as a formal place of worship. The Sikh Community was outraged but seemed to be helpless. I wrote a huge number of letters to many concerned people: the Polish Ambassador in India, the Polish Ambassador in the UK, recruited the support from many senior Polish officials and the many colleagues that I studied with. All attempts to reach some form of dialogue with the Komandant of the Border Guard failed. Even the intervention of the Polish Under Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who having been a Delegate at the Polish Indian Trade Summit (Sept 2010) and having heard from the highest Officials in India (HH Preneet Kaur) that more respect could be given to the Sikh Community’s distres, was unable to move the Polish authorities.

Consequently having got the 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 that conducts security check at airports. This gained a lot of publicity of the issue. And a lot of sympathy too. No Sikh was trying to evade the security check…all Sikhs were asking for was to conduct the check in a dignified manner – if scanner or othjer evidence suggested that a security threat existed, then all law abiding people would naturally submit to all other intrusive checks – some fact that the Komandant of the Security Service seemed totally deaf to,

Most interestingly, as the case developed, the Airport Security Gurad turned vindictive – the more the publicity about the injustice, the more they became emboldened to demand stripping off Sikh turbans. Even on the official web site of the association of the Border Guard started to carry insulting and demeaning discussions and some of them directed personally to 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!.

with thanks : SikhSangat : link above for detailed news. Mailed to us by : SHAMINDER PURI.

Sikh gets job, USD 295,000 in discrimination case in US

Washington: Six years after he was denied a job as a prison guard in California because he refused to shave off his beard, an Indian-American Sikh has been made a correctional officer at a California jail. He's also won $295,000 in damages.

Trilochan Singh Oberoi, 63, reached a settlement with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and can report to work from November 1.

"Oberoi's legal battle exemplifies the challenges many Sikhs face in the US in seeking private and government employment after 9/11, as widespread ignorance, prejudice and hate pose serious challenges to equal opportunity for South Asians, and particularly Sikh Americans, who are often mistaken for Middle Eastern terrorists," said attorney Harmeet K Dhillon, who represented Oberoi.

In 2005, Oberoi applied for a position as a correctional officer with the CDCR, according to a statement issued today.

Oberoi advanced to the final stage of the application process, which involved a test that needed him to wear a special respirator mask - for this, he was told, he had to shave his beard.

with thanks : NDTV : link above for detailed news.

Sikh body demands memorial for Hondh-Chillar massacre victims

Amritsar, Oct 28 (PTI) The Shiromani Gurdwara Pharbadnhak Committee has come under criticism from a Sikh students' body for delay in construction of a memorial for the community members killed during anti-Sikh riots in November 1984 in Haryana. All India Sikh Student Federation (AISSF) Karnail Singh Peer Mohammed has asked SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar to begin construction of memorial by October 31. Peer said if SCPC fails to adhere to the same, AISSF would start construction of the memorial at Hondh-Chillar village, where the riots took place. Reacting to Peer's warning, Makkar said he has no problem if AISSF cames forward to construct the memorial. He said SGPC realised that there was no use to construct memorial there since none of the affected family was living at Hondh-Chillar and if needed, the memorial would be constructed after thorough discussion with the affected families. As per a SGPC report, 32 Sikhs were massacred at Hondh- Chillar village in Haryana's Rewari district during November 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

with thanks : IBNLive : link above.

The only living master of a dying martial art

A former factory worker from the British Midlands may be the last living master of the centuries-old Sikh battlefield art of shastar vidya. The father of four is now engaged in a full-time search for a successor.

with thanks : BBC News : link above for detailed news story.

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Thursday, October 27, 2011

Sikhs to hold international martial arts competition in San Jose

Sikhs are not unfamiliar with battle, neither physical nor political, here in Silicon Valley.

And on Saturday, the community is holding its first international Sikh martial arts competition at the San Jose Gurdwara Sahib, or Sikh temple, in the Evergreen hills.

The battle is over who will be the best "gatka" expert, the one who best masters a sword, a stick and a shield in an ancient rite of Sikh combat.

"This is the first international gatka contest held in California," said Sukhdev Bainiwal, a member of the San Jose Sikh temple who is in charge of the battle. The first such contest was held nine years ago in Toronto.

He said about 200 competitors from California, New York, Houston, Maryland, New Jersey, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and India will participate. There are four age categories, from the under-7 group to those who are in their 60s.

The winners share a total of $9,000 in cash prizes.

Gatka may be best compared to the eskrima, the martial arts of the Philippines. Bainiwal said this form of martial arts is deeply infused in the Sikh religion; the sixth guru first used this technique on the battlefield.

"It's more spiritual and more meditative," Bainiwal said.

with thanks : mercurynews : link above for detailed news story.

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