Washington, DC: Religious discrimination and hate crime against the Sikh community in the United States has increased in recent years, an eminent human rights expert has told the lawmakers urging the administration and the US Congress to take steps to end this.
“Congress must take action,” Amrith Kaur Aakre told members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties during a recent Congressional hearing on Discrimination and Civil Right.
Aakre is the legal director of the Sikh Coalition.
“Workplace discrimination harms Sikhs in a range of public and private sector jobs including transportation, entertainment, health care, the military and law enforcement by allowing for the biased interpretation and application of government policies and laws.
“We’ve seen Sikhs willing to put their lives on the line in defense of their cities and country, only to be told that uniform and grooming policies prohibit their articles of faith,” she said.
“We have seen Sikhs ordered to cut their hair for work-related drug testing even when alternative means are readily available.
“And we’ve seen Sikh first responders in the fight against Covid-19 pressured to shave their religiously mandated beards instead of being given appropriate, safe personal protective equipment that doesn’t interfere with their faith,” Aakre said.
Regardless of the details, time and again these policies are interpreted in a way that disproportionately impacts minority communities and our system allows it to keep happening, she said.
“We also receive Sikh travelers’ reports of inappropriate demands to remove articles of faith, discriminatory comments by TSA agents and other profiling in our airports,” she told the lawmakers.
“This is a humiliating hindrance for Sikhs and other religious and racial minorities, members of the transgender community and others. And additional discriminatory practices like no-fly list and the lingering effects of the previous administration’s Muslim ban continue to perpetuate profiling against too many people,” she said.
Responding to a question, Aakre said TSA profiling for Sikh Americans and other minority groups has always been a problem.
