Australian Sikhs Outraged at Media Distortion

Australian Sikhs Outraged at Media Distortion

Paritosh Prasher

Indo-Asian News Service

Sydney, Sep 16 (IANS) A front-page photograph in the tabloid The Sydney Daily Telegraph depicting a Sikh with a screaming headline "First Arrest!" has outraged the local Sikh community.

Several Sikh organizations have expressed their disgust at the "misrepresentation" of the community and termed the publication of the photograph in the tabloid owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch as "gutter journalism."

The photograph was carried in conjunction with the first arrest made by U.S. authorities in their probe into the terror attacks September 11 on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon that killed thousands.

In several U.S. cities, Sikhs, with their turbans and flowing beards, have been harassed and assaulted after being mistaken for Arabs and Afghans.

Although no serious incident directed against Sikhs has been reported from the Australasia region, the Australian Sikh Association (ASA) said a number of Australian youths go past Sydney¿s Parklea Gurudwara, probably the biggest Sikh shrine in the southern hemisphere, shouting racial abuse and honking car horns.

Up to 100 Australians are believed to have died when terrorists crashed hijacked planes into buildings in New York and Washington and the media here is choked with demands of revenge.

"They (Sydney Daily Telegraph) published a small apology note hidden somewhere deep inside which has not helped the matter at all," ASA secretary Jasbir Singh Randhawa told IANS.

The newspaper, Randhawa pointed out, failed to carry an accompanying article with the front-page photograph, making the situation even more confusing for its readers.

The ASA has written letters protesting The Sydney Daily Telegraph¿s misrepresentation to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Minister Philip Ruddock and New South Wales Premier Bob Carr.

The association has also written letters to the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian newspapers to clarify the situation.

Reports of assaults on Sikhs in the U.S. have perturbed members of the community in Australia. "We have been painted as terrorists by the Daily elegraph even though we do not condone such acts at all. In fact, we are holding special prayers for those who died in the U.S. attacks in Parklea Gurudwara," said Randhawa.

Other Sikh organizations and community leaders have also made written protests against The Sydney Daily Telegraph.Sikhs have become targets of assault by misguided elements in Australia and they would have to restrict their movements, said Bawa Joginder Singh of Sikh Mission Center, the writer of one such letter.