VZCZCXRO7150
PP RUEHDBU RUEHPW RUEHSL
DE RUEHBUL #3501/01 3071207
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 031207Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2708
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 003501 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PREL KIRF PGOV AF
SUBJECT: AFGHAN SIKH LEADER WANTS LAND--OR MEANS OF ESCAPE 
 
REF: KABUL 1591 
 
¶1. (U) Summary: The senior representative of Afghanistan's 
beleaguered Sikh minority flagged to us their deepening 
problems and alleged that, since the election, the security 
situation for Sikhs and Hindus has worsened as a result of 
the central government's failure to exercise control and 
influence. Since our last report in June 2009 (reftel), the 
Sikh-Hindu population has dwindled from 3,000 families to 760 
families, or about 3,100 people.  The community urgently 
needs help on two matters: land for homes and land for 
cremations.  Lack of police protection from armed thugs who 
confiscate their land and lack of ministerial follow-through 
for the protection of their rights are the stated reasons 
most Sikhs and Hindus have left Afghanistan; the remaining 
stay only for lack of money to leave.  End Summary. 
¶2. (SBU) In a conversation with Poloff on November 1, Senator 
Atwar Singh Khalsa, Upper House MP and the only Sikh or Hindu 
in parliament, talked to us about security concerns.  He 
feared that as a prominent Sikh, his open support for 
President Karzai in the elections put his community at risk 
from local Tajik and Panjshiri supporters of Dr. Abdullah. 
Khalsa believes that the situation for the Sikhs and Hindus 
has become especially precarious in the past few months. He 
unhesitatingly attributed the declining quality of life for 
religious minorities to the "weakening" of the central 
government and its inability to influence the citizenry or 
control powerful rogue elements.  He said the community 
enjoyed the support of the President in his first three years 
in office, but in the last four years, the verbal and written 
support for their rights seldom translated into material 
help. Khalsa attributes the shift in majority attitudes 
toward the Sikhs to the rise of former mujahideen, "those in 
power who make their living from fighting8 and who do not 
share educated views on religious tolerance. 
¶3. (SBU) Khalsa said that in addition to suffering outright 
discrimination, preached in some mosques, the community 
suffers from lack of safe residential areas, lack of space to 
cremate their dead, and the threatened destruction of their 
temples (gurdwaras).  From 64 gurdwaras in Afghanistan, they 
now have 12.  (Note:  There are two gurdwaras in Kabul, two 
in Kandahar, three in Jalalabad, three in Ghazni, and one in 
Helmand. End note.)  Children do not feel safe in public 
schools, and armed gunmen routinely harass the community, 
particularly over land.  Khalsa said Sikhs are increasingly 
vulnerable to targeted violence. A few weeks ago, for 
example, Naderia High School students attacked and beat the 
Muslim watchman to the Kart-e-Parwan gurdwara, accusing him 
of having become an infidel. Khalsa,s two nephews were 
recently mugged.  A Sikh family traveling from Helmand to 
Kandahar was stopped by police, beaten, and told to shave 
their hair. Until Ramadan, there were 30 Sikh families living 
in Kandahar; now there are four. 
¶4. (SBU) Khalsa is especially concerned about a Sikh doctor, 
named Nano Singh, who he said is being unfairly detained in 
Kandahar Provincial Prison.  Allegedly, a Muslim doctor 
bribed the police to destroy Singh's business.  The doctor is 
a well-regarded man who has practiced in the community for 
many years. Police have accused him of raping a female Muslim 
patient; he was also publicly humiliated and his hair 
exposed, a serious insult for a Sikh. Supposedly, the 
provincial governor demanded a bribe of 500,000 Afn. 
($10,500) to move the case to court and the first court is 
now demanding a 200,000 Afn. ($4,200) bribe. (NOTE: Embassy 
Kabul is verifying these reports.) 
------------- 
Bureaucratic assault on a temple 
------------- 
¶5. (SBU) The Kabul city government's expanded road past the 
gurdwara (temple) complex in Kart-e-Parwan has been built, 
and the city now wants space for a sidewalk.  The complex has 
already lost the space where the community's only clinic 
stood.  The city wants another three meters for the sidewalk, 
which will destroy the building, but the community is 
negotiating to keep one meter in order to protect the 
building's front wall.  (Note: Even if they win the extra 
meter, the building's structural integrity may already be 
impaired by the lack of support around the foundation.  End 
Note.)  Khalsa notes that the new sidewalk will be wide by 
Kabul standards, in a residential area with little foot 
traffic, and that the mosque at the end of the street did not 
lose any space at all. 
¶6. (SBU) The sidewalk issue is typical of the "hypocritical 
government support" they experience, Khalsa said.  The 
Minister of Urban Development and 2nd Vice-President Mohammad 
Karim Khalili both issued orders in favor of the gurdwara, 
allowing them the one meter they need to keep the building 
from toppling.  Yet despite the ministerial orders, they have 
received no support to implement the orders and no protection 
from the police. Indeed, said Khalsa, the Mayor of Kabul has 
refused to accept the ministerial orders and threatens them 
daily, apparently determined to undermine the community. 
 
KABUL 00003501  002 OF 002 
 
 
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Cremation 
----------- 
¶7. (SBU) The community's problems with cremations are 
numerous and growing, according to Khalsa.  Death has a huge 
impact on the community because of the religiously sensitive 
question of how to handle the body. Sikhs and Hindus, treated 
as one community in Afghanistan, cremate their dead, and 
submitted the application for a cremation facility six years 
ago. For lack of such a facility, they must burn their dead 
in the open, which Muslims object to because of the smell and 
the fear of disease. The government offered a place for their 
cremations near Pul-e-Charkhi but the Pashtun Kuchi 
tribespeople would not permit them to use it. The government 
authorized another spot in District 21, but again they 
encountered local backlash. Local police provide security for 
Sikh funerals, but are often incapable of protecting the site 
itself. Qalacha, a Sikh cremation spot for 120 years, now has 
houses on it, and they cannot make the authorities  remove 
the houses, built in the middle of the night.  (NOTE: In 
mid-October, Poloff asked the Director of External Relations 
for the Ministry of the Hajj and Religious Affairs Qazi Habib 
Rahman Salehi about land for Sikh and Hindu cremations. He 
dismissed the concern, saying that they should use the 
desert. End Note.) On October 9, at a desert cremation site 
outside Kabul, the Sikhs found cow dung, bones, and garbage 
dumped in what appeared to be a purposeful act of 
desecration. Kandahari Sikhs no longer have a cremation site, 
and have to travel to Ghazni. 
¶8. (U) Everyday life and practicing ordinary aspects of their 
religion is increasingly difficult for the community, said 
Khalsa. Sikh women are forced to adapt to dominant cultural 
norms or risk harassment, dishonor, and possible violence; 
consequently, no Afghan Sikh women work outside the home. 
(NOTE: Sikh women in other countries enjoy equal status with 
men. End Note.) Unemployment is a growing problem, as Sikh 
business owners have left the country, leaving their 
employees without work. Sikhs are also exploited by 
landlords, who charge exorbitant rents of $300-400 per month. 
¶9. (SBU) Khalsa said that every Sikh here would leave given 
the opportunity to do so; only money holds them back. 
Refugee status would be acceptable, even preferable to the 
current living situation for some.  Khalsa said they would go 
to any country except Pakistan or India, as in India they are 
discriminated against as Afghans and typically only allowed 
three-month visas. He said they consider themselves Afghans 
first and Sikhs second, as their beliefs stipulate. 
¶10. (SBU) As a result of their loss of government protection, 
Khalsa said he has lost trust in government solutions.  For 
him, eight years of promises have yielded less and less: for 
seven years they have waited for promised schools; for six 
years, a crematorium; now, they face the loss of their 
temple.  The president no longer accepts their requests for 
meetings. 
¶11. (SBU) COMMENT: The widened road seems an example of a 
deliberate tactic to harass the Sikhs, given how little 
traffic moves down the street on which the gurdwara is 
located. Khalsa seemed genuinely depressed, worn down by the 
problems of his community and his years fighting on their 
behalf.  Though they have no hope of ever regaining the level 
of community support they felt in the 1960s when Afghanistan 
was the most religiously-tolerant country in the region, the 
Sikhs want to live in peace in their homeland. But given 
their experience of  increasing intolerance for religious 
difference in Afghanistan, the community is likely to end up 
emigrating. Until then, they seek our help in pressing their 
case for land and space to cremate their dead and we will 
explore means of being of assistance. End Comment. 
EIKENBERRY