Sikh References Removed Permanently From Exhibit, DEA Says

April 27, 2009

Author: Anju Kaur

Source: SikhNN

http://www.sikhnn.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=669&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

The Drug Enforcement Agency has removed and revised parts of a travelling museum exhibit in which it connects Sikhs and Operation Blue Star to the ongoing global narcotics war.

The 'Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs Cause' exhibit was on display in Chicago and Detroit before it's objectionable kiosk display was noticed by a couple of Sikh visitors at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

According to an April 23 letter from the DEA's museum and visitor center in Arlington, Va., which created the exhibit, it has removed the following text from an interactive kiosk: “Sikh terrorists seized the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India,” referring to the June 5, 1984 seize of Darbar Sahib by the Indian Army, and “Both Sikh and Kashmiri terrorists were blamed for the attack,” referring to the bombing of an Air India plane on June 23, 1985.

It has also changed a reference to a June 23, 1985, blast at the Tokyo airport from a “Sikh bomb” to “another bomb,” according to the letter sent to the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a Washington-based advocacy group.

The group first expressed its concerns in an April 9 letter. It also asked the Sikh community the following week to take action. The kiosk was turned off after the center was flooded with emails from the Sikh community.

It was turned on again late last week, without the controversial material, a spokeswoman from the science center said today.