Major Coalition Activities

In 2002, the Coalition activity grew at an outstanding rate. Each day Coalition representatives pursued programs that served the interests of Sikhs in America and around the world. Simultaneously, the Coalition worked to build a united front amongst Sikhs through extensive coalition building. Most of these Coalition initiatives are firsts for Sikhs in America. The first contact with a particular congressman, the first presentation to a certain judge, the first discussion with the victim of a hate crime - through this work, Sikhs in America began asserting their presence. Yet, even amongst the "firsts" that occurred on a daily basis, a few stood out as particularly historic. These events helped place Sikhs in a national spotlight, generated awareness of who we were throughout the government, and brought together those that had never before worked together. In the 2002 annual report we will highlight six of these activities:

• The Sikh Coalition Awards Banquet - an opportunity for the Sikh community to honor those that assisted Sikhs after September 11th and helped to educate America about Sikhs and Sikhism. Congressmen, government officials and media representatives were honored in this inaugural event.
• Justice For All, The Aftermath of September 11th - With the Hate Free Zone of Seattle, and over 100 other community organizations, the Coalition helped create a historic town hall event, that drew together over a 1000 people, from many minority communities, to tell the first hand accounts of men, women and children who faced adversity after September 11th to their government officials.
• United Nations Outreach - The Coalition represented Sikhs at UN interfaith services and outreach activities. Sikhs stood besides other major religious leaders and Kofi Anan at the interfaith service that marked the opening of the 57th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
• Columbia Human Rights Conference - In partnership with Columbia University Sikhs (CU Sikhs) and leading Sikhs human rights organizations, the Coalition sponsored a conference that brought together academics and advocates together to present their work and collaborate on approaches for furthering the education of human rights issues and renewed activism Show only in web version
• Eidos Campaign - The Coalition coordinated an international campaign, involving over 150 Sikh and non-Sikh organizations to protest the racist content of the Hitman 2 video game. Within a few weeks over 10,000 people signed a petition through the Coalition's website. Combined with the collective work of supporting organizations, this increase in awareness helped convince Edios to remove offensive content from the game. One of the largest "instant" grass roots efforts in recent Sikh history, the Edios campaign showed the potential impact of successful coalition building.
• Amric Singh - Amric Singh was fired by the New York City Police Department for refusing cut his beard and wear a police department hat in lieu of his dastaar (turban). During the past year, the Sikh Coalition launched a campaign with Amric Singh to persuade the NYPD to allow Sikhs to serve as officers in the NYPD. This coming March, the Coalition will bring suit against the NYPD for violating Amric Singh's civil rights. We expect that Amric Singh's matter will be one of our top advocacy and legal challenges during the coming year. We believe this case is pivotal for Sikhs to proudly assert their identity in America.