Close X
Friday, November 29, 2024
ADVT 
International

Another Hate Crime: 'Americans Attacking Sikhs Thinking They're Muslims'

IANS, 29 Dec, 2015 12:01 PM
    With Sikhs increasingly becoming the target of racial attacks in the US, a media report says they are frequently mistaken for terrorists and radicals as they are conflated with Muslims by many Americans.
     
    In the latest string of incidents targeting turbaned Sikh Americans, Amrik Singh Bal, 68, was assaulted in California on Saturday morning while waiting for a ride to work, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
     
    According to police, the suspects after striking the victim with their car and assaulting him while he was down, yelled: "Why are you here?"
     
    The attack is being investigated as a hate crime.
     
     
    "Sikhs have been mistaken for terrorists and radicals and continue to suffer after 9/11," the Post quoted Iqbal S. Grewal, a member of the Sikh Council of Central California, as saying in an interview to the Fresno Bee following the Saturday assault.
     
    "This is the latest episode of what Sikhs have been enduring when they are very peace-loving and hard-working citizens of this great country and not members of Al Qaeda or ISIS or any other radical group."
     
    However, xenophobic intolerance against Sikhs is not new and started soon after they began arriving in the Pacific Northwest to fill logging jobs in the early 20th century, according to Simran Jeet Singh, a senior religion fellow at the Sikh Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group.
     
     
    "Pretty immediately after our arrival in this country, we became targets of xenophobia," Singh said. "Hate violence has ebbed and flowed throughout our history in America, but being targets of racism is nothing new. It's part of our history here," he added.
     
    After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, attacks against Sikhs intensified when a wave of anti-Islamic sentiment washed over the country, leading some to confuse the long beards and turbans worn by many Sikh men as a representation of Islam.
     
    Others viewed it simply as an opportunity to attack individuals they perceived as being "un-American", according to the Post.
     
     
    The Sikh Coalition said there were more than 300 cases of violence and discrimination against Sikhs in the US in the first month after the 2001 attacks.
     
    "Over the last few weeks, the level of intimidation is worse than it was after September 11," Harsimran Kaur, the Sikh Coalition's legal director, told The Post. "Then, people were angry at the terrorists and now they're angry at Muslims, anyone who is seen as Muslim, or anyone who is perceived as being 'other.'
     
     
    Earlier this month, a Sikh store clerk in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was shot in the face during a robbery. The victim reported that the assailant called him a "terrorist."
     
    Following an attack by a Muslim couple at a social services centre in San Bernardino, California, a gurdwara in nearby Orange county was vandalised with hateful graffiti earlier this month, according to the Sikh Coalition
     
     
    In September this year, Inderjit Singh Mukker, a father of two on his way to the grocery store, was savagely assaulted in a Chicago suburb after being called "bin Laden."

    MORE International ARTICLES

    Heads Up, Java Drinkers: Machine Maker Keurig Selling To Private Firm For Almost $14 Billion

    Keurig, the maker of single-cup coffee machines that sit on millions of kitchen counters, agreed to sell itself Monday for almost $14 billion.

    Heads Up, Java Drinkers: Machine Maker Keurig Selling To Private Firm For Almost $14 Billion

    Sushma To Engage With Pakistan After Modi, Doval

    Sushma To Engage With Pakistan After Modi, Doval
    India and Pakistan are set to hold the third bilateral engagement at the top level in less than 10 days with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj reaching Islamabad on Tuesday for a conference on Afghanistan.

    Sushma To Engage With Pakistan After Modi, Doval

    Indian-American Entrepreneur Frank Islam Conferred UP Ratna Award

    The award will be given by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav at the inaugural UP Pravasi Diwas in Agra on January 4, according to a media release.

    Indian-American Entrepreneur Frank Islam Conferred UP Ratna Award

    California Shooter Attended Islamic School Founded By Scholar Who Lives In Canada

    While in Multan, she also attended a religious school, which Pakistani intelligence officials on Monday identified as the Al-Huda International Seminary

    California Shooter Attended Islamic School Founded By Scholar Who Lives In Canada

    Like Everyone Else, Extremists And Violent Criminals Share Their Acts Via Digital-Age Tools

     Tashfeen Malik, the woman involved in this week's Southern California mass shooting, has another claim to notoriety

    Like Everyone Else, Extremists And Violent Criminals Share Their Acts Via Digital-Age Tools

    Hunt For Indian-Origin Suspected Of Molesting New Zealand Woman

    Hunt For Indian-Origin Suspected Of Molesting New Zealand Woman
    The police called for public assistance to identify a man who grabbed a young woman from behind, covered her mouth before indecently assaulting her at Sunnynook Bus Station - the smallest such in Auckland

    Hunt For Indian-Origin Suspected Of Molesting New Zealand Woman