New Delhi : UNITED SIKHS, a United Nations affiliated international advocacy NGO, calls on Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to convince President Nicholas Sarkozy, during the latter’s visit to India this week, to reverse the Sikh Turban ban in France.

Dr Manmohan Singh, a Turban-wearing Sikh, cannot turn a blind eye to the injustice suffered by Sikhs in France, who have not been allowed to practice their faith freely, since a law was passed in 2004 that banned the wearing of the Sikh Turban in schools. Since the law, France has also not issued passports, driving licence and residence cards to Sikhs who refuse to remove their turban for their ID photos.

Dr Manmohan Singh, a Sikh who has never been seen without his Turban, is the best evidence France needs to be convinced that a Sikh is inseparable from his Turban. Mr Sarkozy arrives in New Delhi tomorrow as a chief guest for India’s Republic Day celebrations on 26th January 2008.

“We call upon Dr Manmohan Singh to highlight the effect the law is having on Sikhs in France,” said Mejindarpal Kaur, a UNITED SIKHS director, who is leading the legal challenge on the French ban on the turban in schools and on ID document photos.

“A school child who is prevented from manifesting his faith is effectively being prevented from practising it,” she said at a gathering today, at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi.

Under the European Convention on Human Rights, France is only allowed to deny someone a right to manifest his/her faith for reasons of safety, security or health or if it undermines the right of another.

“The Sikh Turban does not threaten France’s safety, security nor health nor does it takes away another’s right,” said Mejindarpal Kaur.

“Sikhs respect France’s desire to observe secularity in public places and the Sikh Turban does not threaten secularity,” said Gurdial Singh, an Indian national living in France, who traveled to New Delhi to campaign for the Sikh Turban ban to be lifted in France.

“Secularity should promote a neutral position on religion and not an antagonistic one,” he told the gathering in New Delhi.

“We urge Dr Manmohan Singh to use all diplomatic and economic channels to ensure that Sikhs receive a just reward for the sacrifice thousands of turban-wearing Sikhs made when they fought for the French people and their liberation in World War I and II,” said Gurpreet Singh, a UNITED SIKHS director based in Chandigarh, Panjab.

“It will be a travesty to forget the sacrifices made by 80,000 Turbaned Sikh soldiers for France in the two World Wars,” he added at the gathering.

UNITED SIKHS views the continuing ban on the Sikh Turban as a gross violation of the fundamental rights of the Sikhs and also a grave transgression of human rights. The French State’s ban of the Sikh Turban constitutes a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Protocol Rights (ICCPR) of the United Nations and the European Convention on Human Rights, which France has ratified.

To access slides, on French Sikh History and the sacrifices made by Turbaned Sikh soldiers during the World Wars, click https://www.unitedsikhs.org/rtt/pdf/French_Sikh_History_Presentation_Combined.pdf

Issued by:

Jaspreet Singh
Staff Attorney
International Civil and Human Rights Advocacy (ICHRA)
UNITED SIKHS
Tel: 91 9999 481 785
law@unitedsikhs.org