fbpx
33.9 F
Spokane
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeCommentaryAfter shooting, Sikhs push for more legal protections

After shooting, Sikhs push for more legal protections

Date:

Related stories

My Journey through Homelessness Part Five: Learning to Live Outside the Box

The value of my homeless experience lies not so much in having learned how to live outside — at least not in the geographical sense. The value of my homeless experience lies in having learned how to live outside the box.

Lost in Translation: Isn’t It Time We Moved Beyond a Fear-Based Repentance?

When I hear the kingdom is at hand, followed immediately by the command to repent, the good news is overshadowed by the fear that I’m not good enough to be part of the kingdom of God.

Inspiring Others: How Our Marriage Turned 50

As we prepare to celebrate 50 years there are so many thoughts and memories going through my head. I have joked about how I don't know how you've put up with me for this long, which is really true in a sense with my Irish enthusiasm and temper.

Taking the Road ‘Less Traveled by’ Has Made ‘All the Difference’

Pete Haug remembers hearing Robert Frost read his poem "The Road not Taken" 65 years ago. It reminded him of his spiritual journey out of the Christianity of his youth into choosing the Baha'i faith as an adult.

Ask an EOC: Can You Confess in Private to God but not in Church Confession and be Forgiven?

Concerning the sacrament of Confession, Christ directly gave the authority to his Church to remit or retain the sins of the penitent. 

Our Sponsors

spot_img
spot_img
Babajee hugs members of the Sikh Temple of Spokane
Babajee hugs members of the Sikh Temple of Spokane

U.S. Sikhs are taking heart in a widely publicized Senate hearing on hate crimes and a pledge by the Justice Department to consider tracking hate crimes directed at their community. 

The hearing, on Wednesday (Sept. 19), featured Harpreet Singh Saini,18, whose mother was one of six Sikh worshippers killed Aug. 5 when a gunman opened fire in their Wisconsin temple.

“Senators, I came here today to ask the government to give my mother the dignity of being a statistic,” he told a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “My mother and those shot that day will not even count on a federal form. We cannot solve a problem we refuse to recognize.”

Sikhism, a monotheistic faith founded in South Asia, is the world’s fifth largest religion with an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 adherents in the U.S. Male Sikhs often keep their uncut hair bound up in a turban.

The Senate hearing, spurred by the Wisconsin shooting, brought more than 400 people to Capitol Hill, most of them Sikhs.

Geeta Goindi, a Sikh woman who attended the hearing, said she was buoyed by the turnout.

“The biggest success was the strength in numbers,” said Goindi, one of many Sikhs who expressed hope that Americans will now take note of their faith community.

In Congress and in the administration, Sikh activists have gained supporters.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chaired the hearing, said Americans must learn from the Wisconsin shooting. “It was not the first tragedy based on hate and, sadly, it won’t be the last. But it should cause all of us to redouble our efforts to combat the threat of domestic terrorism.”

Scott McAllister, a deputy undersecretary in the Homeland Security Department, testified that his department will remain vigilant when it comes to domestic terrorists but pointed out some of the difficulties in tracking them. “(T)hey tend to operate as lone offenders or in small cells, which complicates law enforcement's detection and disruption,” he said.

Sikhs asked government officials to protect their community, saying they are often targets of discrimination from those who do not understand their beliefs and practices.

The Sikh Coalition, a civil rights organization, like Saini, is asking Congress to track hate crimes against Sikhs. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy L. Austin Jr. said that the Justice Department would convene a meeting of religious groups in October to consider expanding hate crime tracking statistics to include Sikhs.

The Sikh Coalition also wants government officials and candidates to take a pledge to abstain from using language that incites bigotry, to invest in anti-bullying campaigns and to create a presidential task force to track progress on hate crime prevention.

Sikh activists were supported by 150 organizations — from the Council on American-Islamic Relations to the American Jewish Committee — that signed a letter calling for the hearing.

After the hearing, more than 100 civic groups sent a letter to President Obama calling for a summit on religious tolerance.

“Mr. President, your leadership and high-level attention has never been more urgently needed to bring comfort to those who have been victims of this hate and to set a course forward for our country where children will not be judged by how they pray but by the content of their character,” the letter reads.

Tracy Simmons
Tracy Simmons
Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of FāVS.News, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.

Our Sponsors

spot_img
spot_img
spot_img
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
spot_img
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x