Legal Center

The Sikh Coalition Meets with Attorney General Ashcroft

Washington, DC, October 16, 2001: Attorney General John Ashcroft met with Sikh, Muslim and Arab American leaders to discuss issues facing their respective communities in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Sikh-American community was represented at the meeting by The Sikh Coalition.

Amardeep Singh, Director of Legal Affairs for The Sikh Coalition, presented to the Attorney General the issues that have faced Sikh Americans since September 11, including backlash attacks, profiling, turban searches and confiscation of the kirpan, a religious article of faith. In addition the Attorney General and his staff were presented with a formal memorandum detailing these concerns.

Mr. Singh described the meeting as very successful, "The Attorney General was genuinely interested to hear and act on our concerns,"

Hate crime prosecution and profiling and turban searches of Sikh-Americans at airports was raised with the Attorney General in particular. The Attorney General was made aware that Sikh-Americans have been asked to remove their turbans for weapons searches at some airports. In addition, there was a call for indictments in the many on-going hate crimes investigations being presently conducted by the Department of Justice.

The Attorney General assured the Coalition that a directive on profiling in airports would be issued from the Department of Transportation. In addition, the Attorney General stated that he expected that either state or federal authorities would prosecute the murderer of Balbir Singh Sodhi.

Call To Action

The Attorney General's Office and the Department of Justice have showed support for the backlash being faced by the Sikh Community. If you or someone you know is a victim of Racial Profiling, Harassment, Unfair treatment at an Airport, Hate Crime, or Bias incident, please go to http://www.sikhcoalition.org and report it.

We must document all cases of attacks and incidents against Sikh so that we can effectively represent the Sikh community's interests to the government.

[BACK]