Free Republic

A week before President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office, the U.S. Transportation Department issued new “guidance” for airline flight crews on how to avoid discriminating against Muslim and Sikh passengers. DOT said it recognizes the very important and difficult job of the airlines to provide a safe and secure travel environment. “At the same time, it is important that this function be carried out in a non-discriminatory manner.” The guidance says airline personnel must not be swayed by a passenger’s appearance alone: “In other words, airline personnel should ask themselves, but for the passenger’s perceived race, color, national...

Just two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump enters office, the U.S. Army issued a new regulation under the Obama administration: servicemen and women will be allowed to wear beards, turbans, or hijabs for religious purposes while serving the country. The changes issued by Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning were announced Tuesday and were effective immediately, according to the Atlantic. Apart from religious dress coding, servicewomen can now wear dreadlocks (as long as it’s neat and tied), twists, and cornrows, without requesting an accommodation to wear them. "Our goal is to balance soldier readiness and safety with the accommodation of...

The New York Police Department is now allowing officers to wear beards and grow turbans in a bid to accommodate Sikh recruits. Sikh officers will be allowed to wear turbans in place of the traditional police cap and grow beards up to a half-inch long, which are required for religious reasons. Police Commissioner James O'Neill announced the new rules that affect all religious members on Wednesday following a graduation ceremony for new police recruits.

Nikki Haley may have been born in the United States but her extended family back in India is thrilled that the South Carolina governor has been named by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as ambassador to the United Nations. Haley's parents hail from rural Punjab, in northwestern India. They moved to Amritsar - home to the Golden Temple that is the most holy place of the Sikh religion - before emigrating to North America in the early 1960s. Haley, 44, was born Nimrata Randhawa in Bamberg, South Carolina - she was called "Nikki" as a child and took the family name...

Step one: Find an expert with an impressive-sounding academic title to legitimize shoddy advocacy propaganda. Meet Brian Levin. He's the one-man band behind something called the "Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism" at California State University, San Bernardino. The "center" (that is: Levin) claims to be "nonpartisan" and "objective." But he is a former top staffer of the militant, conservative-smearing Southern Poverty Law Center, which was forced to apologize earlier this year after including famed black neurosurgeon and GOP 2016 candidate Ben Carson on its "extremist watch list" of hate groups. At SPLC, Levin infamously posited that the...

A German immigration official has been arrested and charged with espionage for an Indian secret service for allegedly spying on members of the Sikh religion, prosecutors said Tuesday. The 58-year-old German national, identified only by the initials T.S.P., was accused of “espionage activity and violation of professional secrecy rules in 45 cases,” they said in a statement. Working at an immigration office in the western town of Ostwestfalen, he accessed databases to pass on information on suspected extremist and opposition members of the religious group, said federal prosecutors. …

German police Thursday arrested two teenagers with Islamist backgrounds over an explosion that wounded three people at a Sikh temple, labeling it a "terrorist attack". The blast that hit an Indian wedding party at the entrance to the temple in the western city of Essen last Saturday injured three men, one of them seriously. Police arrested two 16-year-olds with known links to regional Islamists over the attack, said city police chief Frank Richter. "We have to presume it was a terrorist act -- religiously motivated terror by the Islamist scene," Richter said in a statement, without linking the youths to...

The latest Category Five Hurricane battering the Army concerns a US Army officer who has demanded to wear long hair, a beard and a turban while on active duty with the lean green machine. As NBC reports: In a decision by the U.S. Army Thursday, Capt. Simratpal Singh, a decorated Sikh-American officer and combat veteran, has received a long-term religious accommodation to serve with long hair, a beard, and turban in accordance with his Sikh faith. In March, a U.S. district judge issues a temporary restraining order against additional non-standard, discriminatory testing. According to The Sikh Coalition, which is representing...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Three Sikh American soldiers filed a lawsuit Mar. 29 asking the Defense Department to allow them to serve in the U.S. Army with their religiously-mandated turbans and beards intact. The plaintiffs are Army Specialists Kanwar Singh and Harpal Singh and Army Private Arjan Singh Ghotra. The lawsuit, filed by the Sikh Coalition, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and McDermott Will & Emery, demands that the Army accommodate their religious articles of faith, including turbans, unshorn hair and beards, so that each can begin Basic Combat Training with their various units in May. The lawsuit was filed...

The bearded man in the blue turban was attacked before dawn on Saturday morning, while waiting for a ride to work. Two white males in their 20s pulled up and began to curse at Amrik Singh Bal, according to police in Fresno, Calif. Fearing for his safety, police said, the 68-year-old Sikh man attempted to cross the street -- but "the subjects in the vehicle backed up and struck the victim with their rear bumper." The car stopped, and the two men "got out and assaulted the victim, striking him in the face and upper body." During the assault, police...

White House Holds Meeting With Muslims And Sikhs by KRISTIN DONNELLY, CHRIS JANSING and CORKY SIEMASZKO President Obama's top advisers held a series of meetings Monday with Muslim and Sikh religious leaders to discuss the fallout their communities are facing in the wake of the deadly San Bernardino shootings. Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, Domestic Policy Council director Cecilia Munoz, and Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes took part in the White House sit-downs — a dozen days after a radicalized Muslim couple fatally shot 14 people and wounded 21 more in California. The Chicago-born Syed Farood and his wife Tashfeen...

Large-hearted Sikhs have taken their traditional community kitchen to one of the most dangerous places on earth today - Syria. Giving a twist to the concept of langar, a group of Punjabi NRIs has collaborated with locals to provide fresh bread to nearly 14,000 refugees daily in the strife-torn region for several months now. Langar Aid, an extension of UK-based NGO Khalsa Aid, is located in the Pesh Harbour area, about 35km from the Kurdish city of Duhok and 10km from the Syrian border. Almost 70% of the members of Langar Aid are with Punjabi roots, besides some European...

36th - of 1897 Saraghari fame ( 21 Indian Order of Merits awarded for that action of 21 men standing against 10,000 Afghans . The IOM was the Indian VC prior to 1911 when King George, at his Durbar in Delhi announced Indian troops as being eligible for the VC . The 45th famous as Rattray's Sikhs defending European civilians from massacre during the Indian mutiny of 1857. Both legendary regiments even before entering Europe - for the 47th France & Flanders was their 1st Battle honour & they won it in some of the hottest fighting on the frontline....

AMRITSAR: Within days of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, some unidentified people vandalized a gurdwara in Canada and defaced it walls. Legal counsel of World Sikh Organization (WSO) Balpreet Singh Boparai told TOI over phone from Canada on Saturday that Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara in South Edmonton bore the brunt of "racist vandalism", with some unidentified people spray-painting its walls with 'leave Canada' and '**** Indians' graffiti. "I can't say the incident is a reaction to the Charlie Hebdo attack, but it is worrisome nevertheless. Unfortunately, there are many people who still mistake the Sikhs for Muslims," Boparai...

(CNN) -- A Sikh student at Hofstra University filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the United States Army, claiming the service refused to grant him a religious accommodation that would allow him to enlist in his school's ROTC program without shaving his beard, cutting his hair and removing his turban, according to court documents. When Iknoor Singh requested a religious exemption from the military's grooming policies to enlist as an ROTC cadet in April 2013, his request was first denied on the grounds that his noncompliance would have "an adverse impact on the Army's readiness, unit cohesion, standards, health, safety, or...

An epidemic of pogonophobia is upon the land – pogonophobia being the irrational fear of beards. It comes in response to a Pentagon directive that gives some latitude to U.S. troops who wear beards — and turbans, and yarmulkes — for religious reasons. The usual rabble was out in force, complaining that the military is knuckling under to liberal sensibilities: “PC gone mad,” one conservative blogger put it, arguing that the change comes “thanks to Obama’s love of Muslims.” The sentiment was repeated elsewhere. With apologies to Willi Schlamm, sometimes the problem with conservatism is conservatives.

Britain's involvement in the massacre of hundreds of Sikh separatists in an Indian temple in 1984 will be urgently investigated, David Cameron has ordered. Previously secret documents released by the Government have shown that a SAS officer was drafted in to help the Indian authorities with plans to remove dissident Sikhs from the Golden Temple at Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest shrine. The plan was ordered with the full knowledge of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher the documents say. Hundreds of Sikhs were killed in the attack. Yesterday Sikh leaders said the revelations amounted to the British Government ‘backstabbing” and have called...

Rapinder Singh Sidhu has pleaded guilty to his role in smuggling cocaine across the Canada-U.S. border and is expected to be sentenced to eight years in prison later this week. U.S. District Attorney Jenny Durkan says Sidhu also contributed to the corruption of a fellow law enforcement officer who sabotaged his own career by becoming involving in the drug-smuggling scheme ... a Canadian border inspector recruited by Sidhu allowed the vehicle to enter B.C. without inspection. Durkan says that in the case of the California load, both drivers received 12 years behind bars and that there’s no justice in the...

Displaying far more patience than anyone could expect from someone who suffered what appears to be a hate crime just two days ago, Columbia University professor Prabhjot Singh said on Monday that he'd like to educate those who broke his jaw while screaming, "Osama" and "terrorist." Singh, a physician who has worked to stop hate crimes against Sikhs, said he's thankful that three bystanders intervened to stop the attack by about two dozen young men on bikes in Harlem. Now he's trying to take something positive from the incident, and break "this feedback cycle of turban-beard-terrorist." "I think it’s pointless...

The Canadian Soccer Association says it has suspended a provincial association over its refusal to let turban-wearing children play. … Quebec’s federation says it’s concerned about safety and points out that the rules of the world governing body, FIFA, don’t specifically allow turbans. Critics of the Quebec decision point out that FIFA’s rules don’t explicitly ban turbans, either. …