New Jersey Sikh Community Calls for an End to Discrimination

December 10, 2003

Source: Today's Sunbeam

http://www.nj.com/news/sunbeam/local/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1071040821212090.xml

On December 10, 2003 Today's Sunbeam reported that "New Jersey's 30,000 Sikhs, Asian Indian immigrants who sport turbans and beards and are often misidentified as extremist Muslims, are increasingly becoming the mistaken targets of anti-Muslim hate crimes, religious leaders said Tuesday. The Sikh Coalition, a national advocacy group, said devotees of the religion, finding themselves the butt of discrimination since the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. are looking to increase education about the sect and end discrimination in the workplace and in schools... According to a letter the group is circulating to government officials, Sikh leaders want to see more cooperation between them and state officials in tracking and prosecuting hate crimes and an end to what they called widespread harassment of their children in New Jersey's public schools."