STOCKTON:CA: World Sikh news has received numerous reports of Sikhs being harassed in this country ever since the US went to war with Iraq on January 15 Turbaned Sikhs are taken for Arabs and are screamed and honked at. Some have even been threatened and told to leave the country.

Go back home you damned Iraqi Abdullah go home have been shouted at many a Sikh American in almost every major urban California area.

According to San Jose Mercury News though police and federal authorities report no incidents of violence against Arab-Americans in the Bay Area Muslims took down the sign at their San Jose mosque Sunday out of concern it would attract vandals

Harbhajan S. Bhinder said he has heard at least 25 harassment reports from Sikhs in the past week including an incident Sunday in which two young men threatened to kill 30-yr-old Gurtej Singh as he was walking in a Hayward city park

On Monday Bhinder warned thousands of members of the Fremont Sikh Gurdwara where Bhinder serves as president not to wander alone.

The incidents point up rising tensions that already have put many Arab-Americans on guard against possible backlash.

Some families have boosted security at their homes and instructed children not to answer the door. Others have changed their names to American-sounding ones.

We have people in the community full of fear said Yousuf Salem of United Muslims of America. I am really disappointed in the American people for making them fearful.

At San Jose State University Sikh-American student Sukhdev Singh Baniwal 24 said he was walking around campus recently when he heard other students mutter who is this guy

Mistake or not the Sikhs say they don’t want to dump their troubles onto Arab-Americans.

Not only should the Sikhs not bear the brunt of this anger the Arabs shouldn’t either say Balbir Singh Ragi a Sikh in Fremont. They are citizens like everyone else.

Bhinder a technician in a Milpitas computer firm estimates there are at least 100,000 Sikhs in living in the Bay Area including about 40,000 in the South Bay.

He said the Sikhs support the USS. Strategy in the Persian Gulf.

If Americans are killed things are going to intensify Bhinder said People are going to be bashing Sikhs.

It is hard to explain to angry people that Sikhs are not Muslims and that Punjab is thousands of miles and three countries to the east of the Persian Gulf. But the ignorance of so many Americans is amazing says Raj Singh of Lodi.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 25, 1991