Punjab Newspaper

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today asked the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to immediately intervene to ensure that the ban on wearing turban in government schools in France is revoked. Badal asked Dr Manmohan Singh to take up the matter personally and effectively since the issue is agitating the minds of the Sikhs and all right thinking people in the world.
“Considering the highly sensitive nature of the issue, the matter was agitating the minds of the Sikhs all over the world . In view of the sensitive nature of the matter, urgent and immediate action was required,” said the Chief Minister. Badal remarked that the was very unfortunate that Sikhs were facing various forms of discrimination in several countries and that the ban on turban in France was only symptomatic of this. He said that the Centre should show greater concern over these issues. Regretting that religious intolerance was being allowed to become the norm in international affairs, Mr. Badal said that the ban on wearing one’s religious symbols “militates against the internationally accepted norms of human rights and preservation of religious and cultural freedom. It is amazing that such a retrograde step has been taken in a country like France which prides itself on its liberal traditions on freedom of conscience.”
The Chief Minister said that Dr. Singh, as a Sikh himself, would be well aware that turban “is one of the inalienable symbols of the Sikh religion.” As such, any ban on this amounted to crushing the right to freedom of religion and conscience.