[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 147 (Tuesday, October 30, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SIKHS ASKED TO REMOVE TURBANS AT AIRPORT, TURBAN IS RELIGIOUS SYMBOL 
                        AND MUST NOT BE REMOVED

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 30, 2001

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, there have been more incidents in which Sikh 
men were asked to remove their turbans at an airport. Dr. Gurmit Singh 
Aulakh, President of the Council of Khalistan, has brought these to my 
attention.
  Satpal Singh Kohli was about to board a Southwest Airlines flight 
from Albuquerque to Los Angeles when members of the ground crew 
demanded that he remove his turban. He told the ground crew that his 
Sikh religion required him to wear the turban and he could not remove 
it. The ground crew insisted that he remove his turban. He needed to 
get to Los Angeles to be with his ailing father. When the agents would 
not budge, Mr. Kohli demanded to see their supervisor. He was told that 
if he had a complaint, he should contact customer service.
  The agents not only searched his turban in full view of other 
passengers, they searched his unshorn hair--required by his religion--
as well. Mr. Kohli said that ``In my whole life I have never been 
humiliated like this.'' The agents had only told him that they wanted 
to search his bag, not his turban or hair. Yet they never checked his 
bag.
  Last Saturday, Tejinder Singh Kahlon, a sitting judge in New York, 
was asked to remove his turban at a New York airport. He refused. He 
was not allowed to board his plane. He called the media to report his 
harassment by the airport security personnel.
  The turban is a symbol of the Sikh religion, to which Mr. Kohli and 
Judge Kahlon belong. It is religiously mandated. They are required to 
carry five symbols. Unshorn hair covered by a turban is one of these. 
More than 99 percent of the people in this country who wear turbans are 
Sikhs. Turbans should not be removed and searched.
  Linda Rutherford, a spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, admitted that 
the incident had to do with ``passenger profiling'' and claimed that 
the rules had to do either with what a passenger wears or what he looks 
like, but she blamed the Federal Aviation Administration for these new 
rules. If that is true, the FAA should be ashamed of themselves. They 
have institutionalized racial profiling as a part of their 
antiterrorism policy. If it is the airline's own policy, then decent 
Americans should flood Southwest Airlines' headquarters with protests.
  We must not allow racial, religious, or ethnic profiling. The airport 
ground crews should be prohibited from stopping Sikh passengers and 
searching their religiously-mandated turbans. This kind of 
discrimination is never acceptable. I ask Attorney General Ashcroft and 
Secretary of Transportation Mineta to look into this matter and stop 
this harassment of Sikh Americans immediately.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to place an India-West article on the Kohli 
incident into the Record for the information of my colleagues.

                    [From India-West, Oct. 26, 2001]

          Sikh Asked to Hand Over Turban Before Boarding Plane

                           (By Viji Sundaram)

       Satpal Singh Kohli was about to board a Southwest Airlines 
     flight from Albuquerque, N.M., to Los Angeles Oct. 22, when 
     ground crew at the security gate demanded that he hand over 
     his turban to them before he enplaned. When Kohli protested, 
     telling them that as a Sikh his religion forbade him from 
     baring his head in public, the agents insisted that he do as 
     he was told. Kohli said that they told him that he would have 
     to fly minus his turban, which would be returned to him at 
     the Los Angeles airport. Kohli said he told them that he had 
     flown Southwest from Los Angeles to Albuquerque just two days 
     earlier and ``my turban wasn't an issue then.'' He also told 
     them that he had to make that flight because his elderly 
     father, who was home alone in Los Angeles, needed to be given 
     medication and may even need to be hospitalized.
       When Kohli realized he was getting nowhere with the agents, 
     he asked to see their supervisor. He said he was told that if 
     he had a complaint, he should call customer service, Kohli 
     said in a e-mail he sent to India-West. The agents told him 
     that if he wanted to make that flight, he would have to 
     submit to a complete turban and hair search.
       Because of his father's medical condition, Kohli said he 
     reluctantly agreed, but requested that it be done in a 
     private area, out of view of the other passengers. Kohli said 
     the agents told him there was no private area and that the 
     search would be done at the security area behind the counter.
       He said an agent not only searched his turban thoroughly in 
     full view of the other passengers and ground staff, she also 
     searched his hair, before allowing him to board the plane.
       ``My sentiments were hurt,'' Kohli said. ``In my whole life 
     I have never been humiliated like this.''
       Kohli said that in pulling him over for a check, the agent 
     had told him he needed to have his bag searched, not his 
     turban or his hair. Yet, after searching his turban and hair, 
     they waved him through, without checking his carry-on bag, 
     according to Kohli, who works as a travel agent.
       When he arrived in Los Angeles, Kohli said he went to 
     Southwest's customer service center and told the two men 
     there--the customer service supervisor and station manager--
     about what he had been put through. Both men, as well as the 
     captain of the plane who happened to stop by, agreed that 
     turban searches were not a part of the new security 
     requirements, Kohli said. He said they apologized for what 
     had happened.
       Called for a comment, Linda Rutherford, a Southwest 
     Airlines spokeswoman in its corporate headquarters in Dallas, 
     Texas, told India-West that following the Sept. 11 terrorist 
     attacks on America, there has been some new Federal Aviation 
     Administration-mandated procedures ``regarding passenger 
     profiling.'' She said she was not aware of the Kohli 
     incident, but noted that ``if a passenger had been flagged as 
     a selectee, there would have been additional security 
     checks.'' She said she was not sure if those additional 
     checks are triggered by what a passenger wears or what he or 
     she looks like.
       ``Certainly, it could be a bit awkward for passengers to 
     have their personal belongings searched in front of other 
     passengers,'' Rutherford acknowledged, adding: ``It is 
     certainly not our intent to embarrass our passengers.'' 
     Manjit Singh, executive director of the Maryland-based Sikh 
     Media Watch and Resource Task Force, told India-West that 
     since the Sept. 11 attacks, his organization has received at 
     least a dozen complaints similar to Kohli's. ``We are very 
     disturbed by what's happening,'' Singh said.
       He said his group plans to meet with Norm Mineta, Secretary 
     of Transportation, as well as with FAA officials to make them 
     aware of what was happening. ``A Sikh should never be forced 
     to remove his turban,'' Singh said. ``It's a religiously 
     mandated headdress.''
       He said turban searches should only be done if the metal 
     detector beeps. Security agents, he said, should first do an 
     electronic check, then pat down the turban if they suspect 
     something, and only as a last resort should they ask the 
     passenger to remove his turban.
       Since Sept. 11, Sikhs nationwide have become targets of 
     hate crimes in the U.S., as people misidentify them as 
     Taliban supporters because of their beards and turbans. A 
     number of them have in recent weeks reportedly set aside 
     their turbans and concealed their tresses under baseball 
     caps.

     

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