Singh’s ordeal offers a disturbing glimpse into the type of religious intolerance that has made Afghan Sikhs a vanishing segment of society. His case also casts a condemning light on a justice system that could take on significantly more responsibility as the United States transitions authority in Afghanistan to the government of President Hamid Karzai.
(Update: Afghan man, detained for being Sikh, is released from prison)
Promoting religious tolerance was one of the goals that the United States and its allies set in Afghanistan after the Taliban government was toppled a decade ago. But religious minorities, who make up about 1 percent of the population, are still routinely ostracized here.
“I’ll go anywhere,” Singh said in a recent interview at the crammed Kabul detention center. “Just not this country, where they can put innocent people in prison for a year and a half.”
Sikhs, who follow a monotheistic religion founded in the 15th century, once constituted a large, prosperous part of Afghan society. In recent decades, as the country has become more religiously conservative, they have been harassed and disparaged as statue-worshipping infidels. They have moved en masse to India and other countries, and community leaders say there are now no more than a few hundred or at best a few thousand Sikhs left in Afghanistan.
Life for Sikhs there has become especially hard in recent years, according to community leader Awtar Singh, a former lawmaker. Thousands had their property stolen during the civil wars of the 1990s. Job prospects are bleak outside of Sikh enclaves. And the government refuses to let Sikhs open cremation facilities, barring them from following an important religious tradition.
“The living conditions are getting hard for Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan,” said Awtar Singh, who is not related to the detainee. “The remaining people who can afford to do so want to go to India.”
A family in exile
Amid ferocious battles among various Afghan militant factions in the mid-1990s, Singh’s mother and stepfather left their home in Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan, and moved to Pakistan. The family spent the first few years of exile in Pakistan, Bahrain and Egypt, he said.
When Singh was in his late teens, they were smuggled into Austria, where the family applied for asylum. Feeling restless because the claim was taking a long time to handle, Singh said he traveled to Britain, hoping that the asylum process there would be easier and quicker. He turned himself over to immigration officials hours after entering the country in January 2007, he said.
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