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

    Mass Shooting In Southern California City Of San Bernardino: 14 Killed

    Mass Shooting In Southern California City Of San Bernardino: 14 Killed
    The San Bernardino City Fire Department said via its Twitter account that it was responding to reports of 20 victims.

    Mass Shooting In Southern California City Of San Bernardino: 14 Killed

    Four PIOs Named Among 100 Leading Global Thinkers

    Four PIOs Named Among 100 Leading Global Thinkers
    Four persons of Indian origin are featured in Foreign Policy magazine's list of 100 Leading Global Thinkers who have generated ideas that could promise humankind a better future.

    Four PIOs Named Among 100 Leading Global Thinkers

    'India Can Learn Perils Of Intolerance From Pakistan'

    'India Can Learn Perils Of Intolerance From Pakistan'
    The film, which has not been screened in Pakistan yet, has touched a chord with Pakistanis across the globe, because it spells out how they are themselves victims of extremism.

    'India Can Learn Perils Of Intolerance From Pakistan'

    Pakistan Hangs Four Peshawar School Attackers

    Pakistan Hangs Four Peshawar School Attackers
    Pakistan early Wednesday hanged four convicted terrorists linked to last December's massacre at an army school which left more than 150 people dead, mostly school children.

    Pakistan Hangs Four Peshawar School Attackers

    Plea Deal In Works For Canadian Teen Charged In Double Killing In Florida

    Plea Deal In Works For Canadian Teen Charged In Double Killing In Florida
      Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, is expected to return to court in two weeks for a hearing in which a plea deal could be reached.

    Plea Deal In Works For Canadian Teen Charged In Double Killing In Florida

    From Homeland To Hairstyles: Hillary Clinton Emails Offer A Glimpse Into Her Personal Life

    The roughly 7,800 pages of emails released Monday were part of a court-ordered disclosure of correspondence sent from the private server Clinton used while she was secretary of state.

    From Homeland To Hairstyles: Hillary Clinton Emails Offer A Glimpse Into Her Personal Life