No evidence suggests that an attack on an 82-year-old Sikh man was a hate crime, Yuba City police said Thursday.

The incident left Prem Singh, a priest in India who came to the U.S. in 1991, with a fractured rib and cuts to his face and hands, said his son, Satnam Singh.

Satnam Singh, owner of Yuba City's Star of India restaurant, believes his father's turban and traditional beard and clothing brought on the attack. It was not a robbery and there was no other apparent motive, he said.

Prem Singh was walking about 3:30 a.m. near his home on Courtyard Way when he was assaulted. He did not report that the assailants said anything during the attack, according to Satnam Singh and police Lt. John Buckland.

The assailants in the Dec. 21 attack were described as a man and woman, both about 30 years old.

Because nothing was said, the attack is classified as random, not as a hate crime, said Buckland.

Neither is the absence of any other apparent motive reason enough to call it a hate crime, he said. [Link]

Jewellers in the western Indian city of Pune have said they will not serve women who wear veils covering their faces following a spate of thefts.

The Jewellers Association in Pune - about 170km from Mumbai - said three recent cases of theft involved women dressed in burkas.

The police were unable to identify the thieves because the women's faces were covered, they said.

Groups representing Muslims have had a mixed response to the move.

Chairman of Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, Naseem Siddiqui says the decision hurts religious sentiments and should not be accepted by the government.

"The burqa is an integral part of Muslim religion and asking women to not wear it while shopping for jewellery will not be acceptable to the community," he said. [Link]

The US government is building a massive database designed to identify individual terror suspects from fingerprints on objects such as a tea glass in an Iraqi apartment or a shell casing in an abandoned Al Qaeda training camp.

The database is being created in part by forensic specialists searching for and preserving evidence overseas. They are collecting unidentified latent fingerprints in places once occupied by Al Qaeda and other suspected terrorists....

"Our assessment of these systems is that many that are undertaken with a goal of identifying terrorists eventually become systems of mass surveillance directed toward the American public," says Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

"When Secretary Chertoff says we are trying to identify people who were in safe houses in Iraq with terrorists, that is a very small part of the story," Mr. Rotenberg says. "The technology used to identify a terrorist in a safe house in Iraq is the exact same technology that can be used to identify a war protester in a Quaker meeting house in southern Florida." [Link]

This past November, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) received a formal letter of regret from the Lehigh Valley Youth Soccer League (LVYSL) for denying Harshaan Singh Athwal the right to play soccer while wearing his patka (Sikh religious head-covering).

The first incident occurred on November 4, 2006 when Harshaan Athwal was denied from playing in a youth soccer match because the referee felt his patka was a safety risk for players of the opposing team. Additionally, on November 11th, Harshaan was again denied from playing in a match by a different referee, who cited that the jura, his knotted hair on top of his head, could physically harm another player....

In response to SALDEF’s letter, LVYSL President Bernie Bennett sent a letter on November 17th stating, “It is the league’s fondest wish that every youth be allowed to participate in the beautiful game, regardless of race, religion, gender nationality, economic status, athletic ability, or any other classification.”

Finally, on November 20, 2006 the State of Pennsylvania Referee Association issued clarifying guidelines relating to religious head coverings. Reiterating the need for religious exemptions they wrote that the, “Secretary General of the United States Soccer Federation has given permission to those bound by religious law to wear such head coverings, usually a turban or yarmulke.” [SALDEF Press Release]

Queen Elizabeth called for mutual respect and greater religious tolerance as she delivered her annual Christmas message yesterday....

In the speech broadcast to Britain and the Commonwealth, the Queen's Christmas broadcast featured for the first time footage of Muslims praying in a mosque.

Britain's 1.5 million Muslims have been at the centre of a number of controversies over the past year, from the continued focus on the threat of Islamist terrorism to heated debate on the full veil worn by some Muslim women.

"It is very easy to concentrate on the differences between the religious faiths and to forget what they have in common -- people of different faiths are bound together by the need to help the younger generation to become considerate and active citizens," the monarch stressed. [Link]

We wish you and your families a very happy and healthy holiday season!

Posts with relevant news will return tomorrow.

Britain's only Asian bishop waded into the row over veils today, claiming Muslim women should not wear the garment in public.

The Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, also argued that legislation should be introduced to give officials the power to remove the veil.

His outspoken comments came just a day after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, claimed the Government had displayed "short-sightedness" and "ignorance" over its policies on Iraq.

Pakistan-born Bishop Nazir-Ali said the Muslim community needed to make more effort to integrate in British society.

"It is fine if they want to wear the veil in private," he told the Sunday Telegraph.

"But there are occasions in public life when it is inappropriate for them to wear it." [Link]

A 15-year-old Sikh boy who claimed he had his hair cut off by racist thugs has admitted he made the attack up.

The boy from Edinburgh reported the alleged racist attack in November and the case was widely publicised.

The cutting of his hair was an act which was seen as deeply insulting to the Sikh faith.

Lothian and Borders Police confirmed the attack had not taken place and said the boy had expressed remorse. They said no further action would be taken. [Link]

Bradford MPs have called for the Government and airport bosses to ensure everyone entering and leaving the country can be fully identified - even if that means Muslim women removing veils.

The calls follow fears a suspect in the killing of PC Sharon Beshenivsky fled the country disguised as a veiled Muslim woman.

It is believed Mustaf Jamma posed as his sister, wore a niqab and evaded airport checks before boarding a plane as he fled to his homeland, Somalia. [Link]

REVERBERATIONS from 9/11 are still "being felt with undiminished intensity", East Ham MP and Treasury Secretary Stephen Timms has proclaimed.

"For us in the UK, serious questions have been renewed by the July 7 bombings, the Lansdown Road, Forest Gate, police raid in my own constituency and the alleged airline plot uncovered in the summer," added Mr Timms. He was speaking during the Race Convention, a major European conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the Commission for Racial Equality.

The politician was at Westminster's Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre to introduce 'Divided we fall; Americans in the aftermath', a documentary which charts the divisive impact of 9/11 on American society.

The documentary follows Valerie Kaur, a Sikh American college student who, after hearing of the unprovoked murder of a family friend in 2001, set out to reveal and confront the forces that divided America in time of crisis. [Link]

Region's Sikhs work toward understanding, acceptance

Post-9/11 America has not been kind to Sikhs. Since the collapse of the World Trade Center, many Americans have linked Sikhs, almost exclusively by appearance, to terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism and the attacks.

The Sikhs had nothing to do with Sept. 11. But, unshorn, dark-skinned and turbaned, they look the part. The Sikhs' resemblance to the Muslim men who threaten the U.S. through Al-Jazeera videos has led to an unwarranted backlash.

"Post-9/11, it's been difficult for our community," said Amardeep Singh, executive director of the New York-based Sikh Coalition, which was founded just hours after the 9/11 attacks to thwart the hate crimes and discrimination already unfolding against Sikhs.

The Sikh Coalition Web site lists more than 400 instances of bias against Sikhs since Sept. 11, 2001. from verbal and physical abuse to murder of a Sikh boy who had his hair forcibly cut by whites last month. Another Sikh Web site reported 133 incidents of hate crimes and harassment against Sikhs in the week following the terror attacks.

There certainly is confusion about Sikhs.

A news Web site earlier this year mistakenly linked a story on the Lebanon-Israeli conflict to a photo of a Sikh. After the Sept. 11 attacks, a Sikh was murdered by someone who suspected the Arizona gas station owner had ties to al-Qaida.

In September, someone defaced a billboard intended to educate drivers on Interstate 78 in Berks County about Sikhism. The graffiti read, in tall black letters, "Arabs go to hell," mistaking Sikhs for some Middle Easterners. "F--- Allah," the person wrote, apparently believing Sikhs pray to the Muslim god....

Some within the Tatamy sangat, hoping to avoid workplace discrimination, Chana said, have foregone turbans and cut their hair and beards, which are considered sacred gifts from God

The Sikh Coalition, meanwhile, is "firefighting," litigating instances of bias against Sikhs. Its long-term goal is to disassociate Sikhs from terrorists -- an effort, Singh said, that could take decades. [Link]

Muslims across Europe are confronting a rise in "Islamophobia" ranging from violent attacks to discrimination in job and housing markets, a wide-ranging European Union report indicated Monday.

The study, compiled by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, urged European authorities to strengthen policies on integration. But it also noted that Muslims need to do more to counter negative perceptions driven by terrorism and upheavals such as the backlash to cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad....

"The disadvantaged position of Muslim minorities, evidence of a rise in Islamophobia and concern over processes of alienation and radicalization have triggered an intense debate in the European Union," said Beate Winkler, director of the Vienna-based group....

"Muslims feel that acceptance by society is increasingly premised on 'assimilation' and the assumption that they should lose their Muslim identity," Winkler said. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, many Muslims feel "they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism."[Link]

The report is available here.

At first, the media releases describing Framingham filmmaker Raouf Zaki's new short comedy read like a politically incorrect joke:

"A group of Arab-Americans walk into a convenience store. They begin talking about ways to seem more American. The punch line? The FBI is listening in from across the street and thinking they've found the next big terrorist cell."

But although this 19-minute film starring Hollywood actor and comic Ahmed Ahmed (of MTV's "Punk'd" with Ashton Kutcher ) is laugh-out-loud funny, its underlying message is dead serious.

"After the Gulf War, I started getting this feeling that I should make films about my culture and my culture as it's seen in America... and after 9/11 , it seemed even more urgent," said Zaki, 37, who came to the United States from Egypt in 1985 at age 17.

"This film is about the anxiety that I've felt since 9/11, whether I'm going through airport security with a lot of film equipment or just the way that people look at you and get tense if you have a Middle Eastern background. It's unspoken, but you can feel it," he said. "I knew a lot of it has to do with ignorance, and I wanted to do something about it."

That something is the darkly satirical "Just Your Average Arab," which Zaki completed in June and will be screening in Framingham on Wednesday. [Link]

Stomping her boots and swinging her bony arms, Fadwa Hamdan led a column of troops through this bleak Texas base.

Only six months earlier, she wore the head scarf of a pious Muslim woman and dropped her eyes in the presence of men. Now she was marching them to dinner. [Link]

Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is co-sponsoring the "End Racial Profiling Act". The proposed bill is said to have been prompted by the recent removal of six Muslim imams, who are reported to have acted in a decidedly provocative manner, from a US Airways’ flight.

Pelosi said: "Since September 11th, many Muslim Americans have been subjected to searches at airports and other locations based upon their religion and national origin, without any credible information linking individuals to criminal conduct. Racial and religious profiling is fundamentally un-American and we must make it illegal." [Link]

Sixty-six percent of [polled Americans] said that the FBI and other agencies are "intruding on some Americans' privacy rights" in terrorism investigations, up from 58 percent in September 2003. Thirty percent think the government is not intruding on privacy. [Link]

American Muslims making a religious pilgrimage to Mecca are being encouraged to file civil rights complaints if they feel discriminated against by airlines.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), citing what it called the "airport profiling" of six imams removed from a recent flight, yesterday said Muslims traveling this month to the holy site in Saudi Arabia need to be aware of their rights.

"Given the increase in the number of complaints CAIR has received alleging airport profiling of American Muslims, we believe it is important that all those taking part in this year's hajj be aware of their legal and civil rights," said Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR spokesman....

But M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Phoenix physician and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), said the announcement by CAIR "continues the tired stoking of the flames of victimization." [Link]

[Amal] Abo-Basha is one of thousands of Muslim women in America who wear the hijab daily. Religion and women’s rights have always been controversial topics, and Abo-Basha must deal with both issues every day.

Abo-Basha not only receives various looks of curiosity and confusion but also is disrespected daily by fellow students, she said.

“There are always those rude people everywhere in the world that are just not accepting of anything,” Abo-Basha said.

“If they work somewhere and I ask for something, they’ll fling around my stuff. They’ll give it to me in a rude way. They’ll snatch my money out of my hand — stuff like that. Also — this is really weird — they won’t look at me in my face.”

Manal Gasem, another Muslim student who wears the hijab, said she remembered an incident that occurred about four years ago.

Gasem, a chemical engineering senior, said she was driving north of campus when a white college-aged man yelled “Get that towel off your head!”

She said she was in shock at first because the incident was the first time someone had openly chastised her for covering her head.

Abo-Basha said even though she faces daily discrimination she enjoys wearing the hijab because she is instantly identified as a Muslim woman. [Link]

The [Iraq Study Group], a bipartisan group of former public servants led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, was charged with conducting "a forward-looking, independent assessment of the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq, its impact on the surrounding region and consequences for U.S. interests...."

In reaction [to the report], here's what White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "The one thing they thought was absolutely important was to rebuild a sense of national unity on this, and that was their overwhelming objective...."

Maybe I'm skeptical of the usefulness of national unity because I saw it up close in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. I saw the crowds of people lining Harlem Avenue in Bridgeview, waving flags and singing "The Star-Spangled Banner." And I saw some parts of those crowds turn into ugly mobs that marched on places of worship and beat up Sikh cab drivers, that hurled ugly racial slurs and broke windows and threatened women and children. The nostalgic picture of America in those days is of a country united. It was reductive then. It's a sick joke now. [Link]

Immigrants to this country have a “right to be different” and a “duty to integrate”, according to Tony Blair. I think this means clear off if you don’t like it here, but one can never be entirely sure with him. For example, he also said multiculturalism had always been about a balance between conformity and difference....

Government sponsored multiculturalism for 30 years insisted there was no imperative to share the core values of society — if there were core values of society, which there probably weren’t. People who disagreed were branded “racist”. If Blair had made his speech 10 years ago he’d have branded himself “racist”, which would have been fun to watch, I suppose.

Then, when he turned to that silly non-issue — Muslim women wearing the veil — he got it all wrong again. Surely if there is one area where immigrant communities should be allowed do as they like it is in the clothes they choose to wear. Attack the ideology behind the veil, the Islamic attitude towards women — not the veil itself. But the PM can’t do that because he’s already attempted to force all of us, by law, to respect that ideology, regardless of its misogyny (and, one might add, homophobia, anti-semitism, etc). [Link]

Pearl Harbor, 9/11 ushered in dark ages for both societies

The internment of Japanese immigrants is familiar to most Americans — in large part, because Yamasaki and legions of Japanese camp survivors have made their voices heard.

Now, Yamasaki and other survivors are speaking out against a new danger.

"We were stereotyped," said Yamasaki. "Now, with the Muslims, it's the same thing. Everyone's pointing fingers saying they're an enemy."

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stripped Japanese-Americans of their homes and freedom. But five years ago, the actions of 19 hijackers radically altered the lives of the county's estimated 6 million Muslims.

"Pearl Harbor gave the United States the excuse to discriminate against Japanese-Americans by saying these guys are potential saboteurs," said Steve Okamoto, co-president of the San Mateo chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). "Now, they're lumping (Muslims) together like they did with the Japanese." [Link]

A national association that advocates for the rights of Muslims has asked the FBI to investigate a Melbourne attack as a federal hate crime.

Elhassan Elfakiri, 42, was mugged Nov. 14 while checking his mail at Tradewinds apartments on Palm Bay Road, a police report states. The two attackers shouted religious and ethnic slurs as they beat him, police say.

Sabiah Kahn, executive director of the Orlando office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the FBI needs to investigate to show attackers that authorities take bias crimes seriously.

"Among their mandates is to protect people against hate crimes," Kahn said.

Elfakiri was hit from behind, according to the report. The attackers knocked Elfakiri unconscious and drove off in a tan SUV.

Elfakiri is a Muslim from Morocco. [Link]

Owner pledges to ensure all staff are made aware of religious exemption to ‘no-hats’ rule

On December 1, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) received a formal apology from the Richbrau Brewing Co. restaurant in Richmond, VA for denying Mr. Hansdip Singh Bindra entry to the restaurant with his turban.

On November 24, 2006, Mr. Bindra, a member of the Sikh faith, sought entry to the popular restaurant in Richmond with members of his extended family. Mr. Bindra was denied entry due to the restaurant’s “no hats” policy. Mr. Bindra attempted to explain that he was not wearing a “hat,” but rather a turban, a mandated religious article of faith for Sikhs. “There were all sorts of people there, and yet I was being singled out solely because of the way I looked”, said Bindra. “I wear a turban everyday as a Sikh, it’s who I am.”

In the apology letter addressed to Mr. Bindra, Michael Byrne, Director of Operations at the Richbrau restaurant noted: “It is with this letter that I would like to extend to you an apology for our doorman enforcing the “no headgear policy” literally.” Mr. Byrne continued, “I have contacted the Richmond media and reaffirmed our policy of the traditional headgear policy exception to our staff. I trust you will feel welcome on your next visit to Richbrau Brewing Co.”

The number of people charged by police with racially aggravated offences rose by 28% last year, figures have shown....

Ken Macdonald QC, Director of Public Prosecutions, said fears of a backlash after the London bombs were unfounded.

He said: "After the 7 July bombings it was feared that there would be a significant backlash against the Muslim community and that we would see a large rise in religiously-aggravated offences....

He said although there were more cases in July 2005 than for any other month, the rise did not continue into August. [Link]

THE Federal Government will pump $1.5 million into projects designed to help refugees and immigrants adjust to life in Australia.

The "Living in Harmony" program funding will help 43 community groups, schools and local governments to develop initiatives to address intolerance at a local level, said Andrew Robb, the parliamentary secretary to the immigration and multicultural affairs minister. [Link]

The six imams removed from a US Airways flight last week.... first attracted attention when they said prayers to Allah on traditional Muslim prayer rugs in the boarding area. After boarding, they changed seats, spreading themselves throughout the plane. They were also overheard spouting anti-American rhetoric. Witnesses said the six men appeared to be either Islamic fanatics or U.S. Army chaplains on leave from Guantanamo....

Imam spokesman Shahin is a great example of why airport security ought to be profiling Arabs. Shahin's predecessor at the Islamic Center in Tucson was Osama bin Laden's financier and head of logistics -- until he was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2002.

Instead of aggressively distinguishing himself from his terrorist predecessor, judging by news reports, Shahin spent the five years after 9/11 denying that Muslims were behind the attacks and complaining of phony anti-Islamic "hate crimes" -- as opposed to the pro-Islamic hate crimes he presumably endorses....

Also strange was that the NAACP has piped in to complain about racial profiling of Muslims. The only reason Americans feel guilty about "racial profiling" against blacks is because of the history of discrimination against blacks in this country.

What did we do to the Arabs? I believe Americans are the victims in that relationship. After the attacks of 9/11, profiling Muslims is more like profiling the Klan. [Link]