US dept for tracking hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus
Friday, 14/12/2012
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
NEW YORK: Calling bullying and harassment of Sikh children a serious problem, the US department of j ustice has recommended that crimes against Sikhs and Hindus be added to the religion- based hate crimes tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI) to help law- enforcement officials tackle the issue.
There is strong support from interfaith groups for adding antiSikh, anti- Hindu and anti- Arab to the hate crime categories tracked by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, said Tom Perez, assistant attorney general in the justice department’s civil rights division.
Perez visited Oak Creek last week and met members and leaders of the gurdwara, where white supremacist Wade Michael Page had gunned down six Sikhs and critically injured three others in August.
Perez said he attended a town hall meeting in Oak Creek, hosted by the justice department, where 22 diverse religious and interfaith groups discussed how religion- based hate crimes are tracked by the FBI’s uniform crime report.
Based on the meeting and the division’s law- enforcement experiences, the division and the community relations service have made a recommendation that crimes against Sikhs and Hindus be added to the coding sheets that the police fill out and the hate crime reports the FBI produces each year. “We believe adding these categories would improve the data about hate crimes,” Perez said in a blogpost. He said the hate crime committed by Page had had an indelible impact on the Oak Creek community. “It is also clear that although the gurdwara has witnessed the very worst of humankind, its members have reacted with the best of humankind - with courage, compassion and strength,” he added.
Perez noted that while the attack on the Oak Creek gurdwara was a crime driven by hate, bullying and harassment of Sikh children also remained a serious problem.
