California Signs Law to Address Bullying of Sikh, Muslim Students
San Francisco: Amid growing incidents of bullying and discrimination against Sikh-American, South Asian and Muslim students in the US, California state has approved a new law to provide a safer school environment for children from the minority communities.
California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 2845 also known as the Safe Place to Learn Act, seeks to address bullying of South Asian, Muslim, and Sikh-American students as well as those mistaken to belong to those groups. "This is a landmark bill for California that will curb bullying and discrimination in the classroom," said Harjit Kaur, Community Development Manager for the Sikh Coalition. AB 2845 ensures the right of every child to practice his/her faith freely in public schools, Kaur said. (This bill) is very important to Muslim and Sikh children because both of our communities have seen a huge rise in the bullying of Muslim and perceived to be Muslim students, Saad Sweilem, civil rights attorney at CAIR-Sacramento Valley (CAIR-SV), told NBC News.
The Sikh Coalition, the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-California, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations-California all collaborated in helping draft and promulgate this bill.
Students from both communities played an instrumental role in getting this bill passed by testifying in front of Assembly members about their own personal experiences being bullied. Because of our current social and political climate, this issue is a major one and we're very hopeful that this bill will tackle it head on. According to The Sikh Coalition, 50 per cent of Sikh students and 67 per cent of turbaned Sikh-American students nationally have experienced school bullying. 'AB 2845' provides teachers, staff, and administrators with school and community resources to help prevent, identify, and remedy bullying and discrimination in the classroom. The bill passed unanimously in the California Assembly 79 to 0 and passed 34 to 3 in the California Senate.
Sikh Man Racially Abused in US
A Sikh man in the US state of California has claimed that he faced racial slurs from a man who threatened to kill him, prompting police to launch a probe into a possible hate incident. Balmeet Singh and his friends were out for dinner on California Avenue. The incident happened when Singh went out of the restaurant to make a phone call. Singh said in the middle of his conversation a man walked out of a cafe and headed straight toward him.
The man said - "you're trying to blow up this country, I should kill you. I'm going to kill you right now." And he used a lot of curse words and he seemed very angry, Singh was quoted as saying by the local media Turnto23.com. He yelled that he was a racist and was the problem. He continued to yell and then threw a drink at Singh, it said. "The drink got all over my destar, my turban, got all over my beard, you know my shirt, my jeans, got all over my phone," Singh added. Singh said after that the man started to walk off toward the parking lot.
Singh followed the man and was able to get his description, his vehicle's description and a license plate number, which he gave to police. Singh said he never expected anything like that to happen in Bakersfield city. Everything I do is here in Kern County and to have someone tell me that I'm trying to blow up the country that I'm going to cause some harm is just very shocking to me. He said the worst part of about the incident was that several people saw what happened and no one stepped in to help. Everyone either looked down or looked away. They all pretended like I didn't exist, said Singh. A report was filed at the Bakersfield Police Department (BPD) and they are investigating it as a hate incident, police said.
PTI
