Sikh trio fights to keep turban, beard at US Marine boot camp
Darpan News Desk IANS, 14 Oct, 2022 12:40 PM
New York, Oct 14 (IANS) Three Sikh recruits, working to join the US Marine Corps, fought for an emergency appeal in District of Columbia's federal court to get an immediate exemption to the Corps' boot camp rule of cutting their hair and shaving their beards.
The three plaintiffs -- Aekash Singh, Milaap Singh Chahal and Jaskirat Singh -- want to attend Marine Corps basic training without having to shave their beards or forgo their traditional turbans during boot camp.
A three-judge panel expressed skepticism that the Marine Corps had a good reason to deny religious exemptions to its grooming standards but questioned why the plaintiffs required emergency relief, the Marine Corps Times reported.
No decision on the motion was made by the judges.
The trio had appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in September after a lower-court judge denied their request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the men to enter boot camp with their articles of faith, the Marine Times reported.
In Sikh faith, men wear turban and they do not shave off their beards or cut hair.
The Marine Corps previously denied all these requests, due to which the trio for years have remained poolees -- an individual who has already signed up to become a Marine but has not yet left for the recruit training at boot camp.
"We continue to believe that the Marine Corps is doing a disservice to both our clients and itself in denying basic rights that are recognised by other branches of our military and under the US law," said Giselle Klapper, Sikh Coalition Senior Staff Attorney.
In April 2022, the Sikh Coalition -- a New York-based advocacy group, Winston & Strawn, the Becket Fund and BakerHostetler, with support from the Sikh American Veterans Alliance had filed suit against the US Department of Defence on behalf of the trio.
"Time and again, Sikhs in the US Army and Air Force -- along with military forces around the world -- have proven that their articles of faith pose no barrier whatsoever to capable military service," said Amandeep S. Sidhu, partner at Winston & Strawn LLP.
"Prohibiting Sikhs from joining the Marine Corps is out of step with the rest of our military, as well as the most basic values that our country holds dear," Sidhu added.
The bodies of eight-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her parents Jasleen Kaur, 27, and Jasdeep Singh, 36, and her uncle Amandeep Singh, 39 were found in an "extremely remote" area near the intersection of Indiana and Hutchins roads. Jesus Salgado is said to have had a long-standing feud with the family and was a former employee in their trucking business.
Indian-origin people across the US have often been targets of robbers because they are believed to have lots of jewellery. The four, who had been under surveillance, were caught in another suburb, New Hyde Park, where they had targeted a house after following a woman, police said.
Claudio Campos, 28, attacked Avtar Singh in broad daylight as he was walking home from work through the Tib Street area of the City Centre on June 23. Campos, who was with his partner at the time, proceeded to walk up behind Avtar before violently punching him to the head. Singh fell into the middle of the road where he stayed unconscious until a passer-by called for an ambulance.
Quoting hate crime statistics 2021-22, Gill, an MP from Birmingham, said hate crimes against Sikhs rose by 169 per cent in comparison to a 38 per cent increase in reported religious hate crimes overall. The 2001 census recorded 336,000 Sikhs living in Britain. Gill said 301 hate crimes against Sikhs were reported in 2021-22, up from 112 in 2020-2021.
Jatinder Singh, 37, and his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, 40, appeared by video link from prison in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday, where they were committed to stand trial over theft and other charges, the Canberra Times reported. Crypto.com intended to refund Manivel $100 but she was erroneously transferred $10,474,143.
The walls of India K' Raja restaurant, owned and operated by Tony Sappal, were spray-painted with derogatory words and phrases targeting Asian Americans. "For 27 years, this has been home. Nobody has ever displayed that kind of anger or hate to us," Sappal told the Richmond Times Dispatch.
