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Hate knocks Sikhs again
Drunken fan calls a Sikh Iraqi terrorist
WSN Bureau
 SEATTLE: A Sikh
cab driver was brutally assaulted by a passenger over the
Thanksgiving weekend in an incident which was clearly a hate crime.
The intoxicated 20-year-old football fan suspect pummeled
48-year-old Sukhvir Singh, beat him, knocked off his turban, tore
out clumps of his hair and called him an "Iraqi terrorist", even as
the victim kept on trying to escape all this while.
The suspect, a
Kent man who, as per the State Patrol, had been ejected from the
Apple Cup for drunken behavior, also continuosly threatened to kill
Sukhvir Singh who had to be briefly hospitalised late Saturday
Seattle's
10,000-strong Sikh community is fuming with anger and have called
upon the the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office to prosecute
the incident as a hate crime.
The suspect was
released from the King County Jail on a $25,000 bond Monday night.
He has not been charged, something that is worrying the Sikh
Diaspora in the United States and elsewhere. More so, because the
police report on the incident does not include any information on
the bias that motivated the crime.
On Saturday,
Sukhvir had stopped to eat when two Seattle
police officers asked him to drive home a man who was in their
custody. It was the night of the Apple Cup in Seattle. Being a good
samaritan, Sukhvir Singh agreed to help the police officers by
taking the suspect back to his residence. Of course, he never made
it there as the man started verbally abusing Sukhvir, using
religious and racial epithets, then got into a scuffle (See box The
Sequence). Trapped in a car pool lane, Sukhvir was forced to stop
the car and tried to escape but the suspect continued his assault
until Washington State Troopers responded to the scene.
"This is not the
first time Sikhs have been targeted out of hate in Seattle. Our
public officials need to take a strong stance against bias. We
expect that this incident will be investigated and prosecuted as a
hate crime," said Jasmit Singh, a member of the board of the
Gurdwara Singh Sabha of Washington, and a Sikh Coalition board
member.
The attack comes
on the heels of a report released by the FBI last week stating that
hate crimes rose almost 8% nationally from 2005 to 2006, with over
half of the incidents being racially motivated. Religious bias was
blamed for approximately 19% of the incidents, while ethnic or
national origin accounted for more than 12% of the incidents.
The victim,
Sukhvir Singh, is shaken. "I am in a lot of pain, and don't
understand why someone would do this to me. I love America
and hope that in my case, justice will be done," he said in a
statement released to the media.
"Sikhs here in
this area want this handled appropriately and (want the assault)
taken seriously as a hate crime," said Hardeep Singh Rekhi, an
acquaintance of the victim and an attorney who volunteers with the
Sikh Coalition. "I've lived in Seattle
my whole life and I know this is something Seattle
wouldn't find acceptable for its community members to do," he said.
Non-Sikh locals
in Seattle are also angry, because they take pride in the fact that
this is an educated city and would rather think themselves to be
above such type of behavior.
The victim,
Sukhvir Singh, also issued a statement in the release. "I am in a
lot of pain, and don't understand why someone would do this to me. I
love America and hope that in my case, justice will be done," he
said.
The Sikh
Coalition got proactive and within two hours of learning of the
attack, it alerted its contacts with the United States Justice
Department Civil Division. The FBI has opened an investigation as a
result.
28 November, 2007
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