“The turban is a religious obligation we could not abandon at all," Singh

By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, January 19 (IslamOnline.net) – French Sikhs plan to take to the streets for protests against an imminent ban on religious insignia in state schools, saying that wearing their winding head coverings is an "indispensable religious obligation".

The enraging protests are to come a few days after 30,000 Muslims staged a massive demonstration against the proposed law, that would force school students to abandon hijab and other religious signs in classrooms as of the next academic year in September, 2004.

"We will ask (French) President Chirac to give us a choice," Chain Singh, president of a temple in Bobigny, outside Paris, told IslamOnline.net.

Singh said the turban is an article of faith and the idea of appearing in public without one is unthinkable.

He had sent a petition to Chirac, asking him to reconsider lifting the ban on dozens of Sikh school children whose ancestors were killed fighting for France in World War I.

"The turban is a religious obligation we could not abandon at all," he said, adding the protests would show solidarity with Muslims seeking no ban on their code of dress.

"Turban, hijab, crucifixes and yarmulke, we all should be given a choice to wear," read the slogans the Sikh leader said are to be raised high in the demonstrations.

Chirac announced Wednesday, December 17, that "Islamic veil, whatever name we give it, the kippa and a cross that is of plainly excessive dimensions, have no place in the precincts of state schools".

The televised address drew the fury of Muslim scholars and other religious leaders, who said the ban would be against the very basic principles of secularism in the rigidly-secular country.

Singh complained that the Sikhs, estimated at 5,000 to 7,000, were ignored by the Stasi commission that recommended the ban.

Dispersed in many areas of France, the Sikhs are densely living in Paris, and where their children stick to wearing the turban.

Sikhs complain that there were ignored by the Stasi commission

Sikh boys wear the turban covering their long, unshorn hair. While girls also don't cut their tresses: Some go bareheaded, others wear veils, and some also wear turbans.

Singh said that Sikhs around the world are acting in solidarity in this respect, citing a demonstration in San Francisco staged by American Sikh community along with Muslims and Christians against the French law.

Britain's 420,000 Sikhs are also working in a signature campaign against the ban as a violation of religious freedoms.

The United Sikhs, an international umbrella group, are rallying  community members across the world to act in support to the cause with an online petition that it hopes would be presented to French Ambassadors.

They are 20 million Sikhs in the world, mostly living in India.

Singh also wrote to India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, asking for help to influence halting the French law, despite the strains between the two sides dating back to political repression that had forced millions of Sikhs to escape abroad from the Indian region of Punjab.

In other western countries, Sikh representatives are allowed to put on their turban. In Britain, which today has a large Sikh population, has carefully taken Sikh values into account.

Sikh policemen are exempt from wearing uniform caps, and Sikh motorcyclists don't have to wear helmets, according to United Sikhs, an international umbrella group.