Feb 14, 2013 - CHANDIGARH: The Union ministry of external affairs (MEA) is likely to take up the issue of turbans with French President Francois Hollande when he visits India on Thursday. Sources in the MEA said the ministry is likely to recommend to him steps like allowing Sikh students to wear keski (a small turban) to school and wearing turbans in photographs in ID cards like driving licences so that Sikhs do not have to take off their turbans every time French authorities check their ID proof for verification.
The move comes in the wake of protests by various Sikh bodies, who plan to stage demonstrations on Thursday in front of Teen Murti Bhavan in Delhi, where Hollande is scheduled to deliver a lecture. Groups like United Sikhs have been asking minister of state for external affairs Preneet Kaur, who is an MP from Patiala, to take up the issue.
Sources said the minister is likely to hand over the letter in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Union external affairs minister Salman Khurshid. Preneet, however, refused to comment on this.
Sikhs in France and across the world have been upset over the ban on turbans on school campuses in France. They have also been peeved over instances of Sikhs being asked to take off their turbans by traffic policemen and government officials to match identities as it is mandatory in France to have photos in I-cards without any headgear.
France has made photos without turbans mandatory despite adopting biometric documents by introducing biometric passports in November 2008 and biometric driver's licences in January this year in compliance with EU norms.
And, another woman MP from Punjab, SAD's Harsimrat Kaur Badal, has lent her voice to the cause. However, Harsimrat, who had a telling 20-minute talkfest with US President Barack Obama in 2010, when she gustily asked him to put a stop to the US border practice of frisking Sikh turbans, tore into her Congress counterpart.
"It is ironical that when world over there are protests from the Sikh community on the ban, Sikh PM and Sikh minister are happy with the French government's reply," said Harsimrat.
"We will submit a memorandum to Hollande. I am meeting several representations of Sikh communities. The ban is like telling us to remove our clothes," she added.
"Every time I have visited the US, I have been asked to let loose my hair and remove the hair pins. Each time, I have put up a defiant face. They would escort me to an enclosure and then the lady would do a pat down on me. My shoes, my bangles, my rosary were put aside," she recollected.
Sikh men have long accepted they cannot take a sword aboard planes and so have modified the religious requirement by carrying pendants or blades embedded in their comb, she said.
The Bathinda MP said the community must not subscribe to meekness and such timidity. "The turban is an inextricable part of the Sikh identity. Sikhs say you may take off their head but not the turban," she said.
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SGPC writes to PM to discuss turban issue with French Prez
HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times
Source
Amritsar, February 14, 2013: With a view to seeking a solution to the turban issue in France, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president Avtar Singh Makkar has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to take up the matter with the President of France during his visit to India, while the SGPC secretary Dalmegh Singh has sought an appointment with the French Ambassador Francois Richier to discuss the issue.
In the letter to the PM, the SGPC president stated that the Sikh students in France were subjected to humiliation and forced to enter schools without turbans, which were an inseparable part of the Sikh dress code.
“When the representations of the SGPC, supported by the representations of the Sikh religious organisations around the globe failed to move the French government, the UNO gave a green signal to the Sikh students to go ahead with the turban,” wrote Avtar Singh in the letter to the PM.
He has urged the Prime Minister to have the issue on the agenda during the forthcoming visit of the President of France to India and urge him to allow Sikh students to attend classes with their turbans on.
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Tarlochan urges PM to raise turban issue with French Prez
Abhijit Prashar
Source
Tuesday, February, 12 2013 - NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH: Former chairperson of National Minorities Commission Tarlochan Singh has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to raise the issue of turban ban by the French Government with President Francois Hollande, who would be visiting India on February 14. The President of the Republic of France is visiting India for the first time after assuming office.
In a letter to the PM, Tarlochan Singh said, “I request you to raise with him the matter of Sikh turban and Sikh identity.” He pointed out that the UN Human Rights Committee had in its decisions on twopetitions filed by the Sikh community said that the turban was part of Sikh religious identity and that the French Government’s decision to ban Sikh students from wearing the turban in schools was a clearviolation of human rights.
Tarlochan Singh said the decisions of the UN committee were adopted on November 1, 2012 and July 22, 2011 and conveyed to the French Government. Yet the French Government had not lifted the turban ban. -----------------------------------
Sikhs urge Sushma Swaraj to raise turban issue with French president
PTI
Source
Feb 14, 2013 - New Delhi: Sikhs members of BJP on Thursday urged their senior leader Sushma Swaraj to raise the issue of ban on turban with French President Francois Hollande. In a letter to Sushma, they said turban was not merely a religious symbol. It was a mandatory article of faith, which very much defines the core identity of a Sikh.
"Hence the turban becomes an inextricable part of a Sikh's appearance and not just a fashionable accoutrement," the letter said.
The UN Human Rights Committee has ruled that France's ban on the wearing of "conspicuous" religious symbols in schools - introduced by a law adopted in March, 2004 - violated a Sikh student's right to manifest his religion, protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the letter written by Sardar RP Singh, BJP national executive member, said.
"In a decision in relation to a complaint made by Bikramjit Singh in 2008, the Committee accepted that the wearing of a turban is regarded as a religious duty for a Sikh and is also tied in with his identity; and that France had not justified the prohibition on the wearing of the turban," the letter said.
The BJP leaders from Sikh community appealed to the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha to request the French President to repeal the law that bans the wearing of turbans in public schools in France.