Sikh Americans harassed at the nation’s airports in the wake of the September 11 attacks because they wear turbans and beards, have received support from an unexpected, and powerful, quarter. Congressman Edolphus Towns, the New York Democrat and ranking member of the influential Congressional Black Caucus, took to the House floor to criticize the “blatant racial profiling” that led to increased incidents of Sikh men being asked to remove their turbans at airports. Last month he said Satpal Singh Kohli was about to board a Southwest Airlines flight from Albuquerque to Los Angeles when members of the ground crew demanded that he remove his turban. Towns noted Kohli’s protestations that his Sikh religion required him to wear the turban and as such he could not remove it, were of no avail as the ground crew insisted he remove his turban if he wanted to board the flight. Towns informed his Congressional colleagues that since Kohli needed to get to Los Angeles to be with his ailing father, and realizing the agents would not budge, asked to see their supervisor but was told in no uncertain terms that if he had a problem he should contact customer service. The lawmaker said, “The agents not only searched his turban in full view of other passengers, they searched his unshorn hair – required by his religion – as well,” which had left Kohli humiliated. Towns said even though the agents had told Kohli they only wanted to search his bag, not his turban or hair, went back on their promise and finally ended up not checking his bag. The lawmaker also brought to the attention of other members of Congress how another Sikh, this time a New York legal official, Tejinder Singh Kahlon, “was asked to remove his turban at a New York airport, and when he refused, was not allowed to board his plane.” “More than 99 percent of the people in this country who wear turbans are Sikhs. Turbans should not be removed and searched,” Towns said. Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Linda Rutherford, while admitting that the incident had to do with “passenger profiling,” claimed that the rules had to do with either what a passenger wears or what he looks like, but placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Federal Aviation Administration for these new rules, the Congressman added. “If that is true,” Towns said, “the FAA should be ashamed of themselves. They have institutionalized racial profiling as a part of their antiterrorism policy.” However, the lawmaker said, “If it is the airline’s policy, then decent Americans should flood Southwest Airlines’ headquarters with protests.” “We must not allow racial, religious or ethnic profiling,” Towns argued, and said it is imperative that “airport ground crews be prohibited from stopping Sikh passengers and searching their religiously-mandated turbans.” “This kind of discrimination is never acceptable,” he said, and called on Attorney General John Ashcroft and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta “to look into this matter and stop this harassment of Sikhs Americans immediately.” In recent weeks, Dr. Jasjit Ahluwalia, Chair and Director of Research, Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and Director, Cancer Prevention, at the Kansas Cancer Institute was asked to remove his turban as he was trying to get on a flight to Brazil to attend a conference. The same fate awaited Gurmeet Singh, a computer consultant who was asked to remove his turban at the Albany, New York, airport. Manjit Singh, president of Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force said his group had received at least a dozen reports of Sikhs being harassed and told to remove their turbans at airport security points across the country. He was convinced there were many more cases but these incidents may not have been reported or are underreported. The one consolation in the cases of Ahluwalia and Gurmeet Singh was that the security personnel had the sensitivity to take them to a private area where they could remove their turbans and be patted down. But Kohli and Kahlon were not so lucky and humiliated in full view of other passengers. Article from India Abroad
