MEXICO CITY, Mexico—Popular Sikh star Waris Ahluwalia was blocked from boarding a New York-bound Aero Mexico flight Monday morning after he refused to remove his turban for a security check.
Ahluwalia, a New York actor and designer, told the Daily News that security personnel held him back until everyone else had boarded the 7:15 a.m. flight from Mexico City before searching his bag, swabbing him and patting him down to the soles of his feet.
Ahluwalia, who has appeared in 17 films, including “Inside Man,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The Darjeeling Limited,” said he complied with the “annoying” security measures, but drew the line when he was asked to remove his turban.
“That is not something that I would do in public,” he explained. “That’s akin to asking someone to take off their clothes.”
Ahluwalia said he asked to be taken to a private screening room, but was denied.
“You will not be flying Aero Mexico,” an airline employee told him, Ahluwalia said. “You will need to book another flight.”
“I was shaking at first,” he said. “That’s not a nice thing to be told, that you are not allowed to fly on this plane because of something you are wearing, or because of your religious beliefs.”
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded in India’s Punjab region in the 15th century that encourages a life of spirituality and service. The turban symbolizes a man or woman’s commitment to the faith.
“Wearing a turban is not an option. We don’t put it on and take it off when we please,” explains Simran Jeet Singh, the head of the Sikh Coalition. “The turban represents our commitment to justice, to service and to faith.”
Singh argues that the current security screening processes, such as patting down a Sikh’s turban or asking him to take it off, are “humiliating and dehumanizing.”
The Monday incident came after Ahluwalia learned he had been singled out for a more-intensive search, known as “Secondary Security Screening Selection” and indicated by four big “S” letters on a passenger’s boarding card.
The “SSSS” indicates to security personnel that the customer has been flagged for enhanced pat-downs, having their possessions swabbed and tested for explosive residue, and being wanded by a hand-held metal detector.
The “SSSS” designation is supposedly random, but no one believes that it is.
“I’ve had the magic ‘SSSS’ before,” Ahluwalia, 41, told the News. “I’m really lucky on my ‘random’ selection.”
After missing the flight home, Ahluwalia posted a selfie with his plane ticket on Instagram. He captioned it: “This morning in Mexico City I was told I could not board my @aeromexico flight to NYC because of my turban.” He used the hashtags #FearisanOpportunitytoEducate #humanrights #dignity #lovenotfear.
Commentators raged about his unfair treatment.
“I can’t believe this is the world we live in, I’m disgusted,” wrote Instagram user @simjaswal.
Mexican social media users told him they were sorry.
“Unbelievable the ignorance of @aeromexico employees. This is so embarrassing to me as a Mexican I’m sorry,” posted user @moshkita.
“So embarrassed about the ignorance of my country,” wrote user @aurorabaileyjewelry..
Disgusting – in this day and age of tehchnology cannot their hand held monitors by pointing to the area detect…. its shear stupidity – I agree if the so called Indian cannot recognise the value of Sikh Faith and happy for sikhs to be humiliated this way. Would a Hindu woman be asked to take off her sari in public as she gathers 6 meters cloth around her belly….
We need to understand ,ponder and analyze the word deeply
“LOBBY”
and see how we can use it to further the interest of our community.
You don’t have to spend any time understanding, pondering or analyzing the word Lobby deeply. Only those politicians who have consciences for sale respond to lobbying – whether it is the promise of commercial patronage or vote banks. You can’t bribe an honest man and you don’t need to as principled men know the difference between right and wrong instinctively. Unfortunately in India we have very, very few of these although I much hope for this Justice Katju. Modi and Badal refused to ‘lobby’ on behalf of Sikhs when the French President came a begging because they saw no personal benefit from making the effort but rather the reverse. I would suggest that Sikhs stop paying into the SGPC pension fund and use those monies to make Hollywood production quality movies in English depicting Sikh history – the battle of Sargarhi is practically 300, Banda Singh Bahadur’s story is effectively Braveheart, Duleep Singh’s tale is reminiscent of Bertolucci’s Last Emperor etc. The Indian Government would probably ban those films though if they showed Sikhs in a positive light so English language approach would ensure they have a market to help recoup some if not all their budget costs in order to make further films.
We need to make movies on all our Hero’s , write books ,pass it down orally to our Gen next and create Web pages .
So the moral of story is
We need to improve lobbying power in world .
That is not the moral of the story. Moral of the story is for people not to discriminate against others who happen to look different to them. You don’t get rid of bigotry by just lobbying (as lobbying only influences people of conscience or those interested in getting votes to keep them in power) but by shining a blinding light upon those who practise it, shaming them in to doing the right thing. In this instance it would be a hefty lawsuit with massive punitive damages awarded against the airline that would quickly change the attitudes of other airlines. Badal and Modi could have lobbied the French President (who was practically bending over to accommodate them in order to sell jet fighters to India) but actively refused to do so not out of ignorance but antipathy towards Sikhs.
Just to clarify when I say lobbying only influences people of conscience, those same people are also ignorant (sometimes unwittingly so) of the deplorable state of affairs which needs to be addressed and changed.
It seems more than just ignorance. The airline could have googled up information on him in a matter of seconds.
I only say it is ignorance because it is really misguided prejudice – the bigotry is aimed at Muslims but they are too stupid to be able to tell the difference between a Sikh and Muslim (despite their centuries old animus) or discern that a Muslim terrorist intent upon committing a hateful outrage on an airliner is hardly going to make himself so conspicuous. Every single one of those heinous Jihadis who carried out the 9/11 atrocities was clean shaven and all those who have (thank God) failed to follow in their criminal footsteps have also been clean shaven to try and meld into the general population. Might be simpler just to have Sikh passengers put their hand on a Koran at screening and swear that they do NOT believe that Muhammed was God’s last messenger as we clearly don’t. But I can see Muslims might take offence at this so that would not be in keeping with Sikh teaching and Sikhs being discriminated against also reveals the blanket racial profiling that is going on which is unethical whether it is wrongly targeted at Sikhs or ‘rightly’ (I am being ironic) at Muslims. Sikhs know all too painfully where stigmatisation, discrimination and collective punishment of entire religious community leads.
Empires have a fair share of Bullies
Even Christians were Bullied in Roman Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Christian_policies_in_the_Roman_Empire
It’s not bullying it’s just pig ignorance. This is exactly why the Prime Minister of India and Chief Minister of Punjab need to be raising the profile of the dastaar and the discrimination Sikhs are facing. They won;t of course because they are quite happy for Sikhs to be humiliated and inconvenienced. You would never see this kind of discrimination if it was a Jewish person wearing a Yamaka because their representatives / lobbyists on the world stage (in stark contrast to ours) are scorching hot when it comes to defending the rights of their faith. I trust the Sikh Coalition will help him sue the S*** out of this airline so it can set an example to others.
Stupidity is more appropriate because there is no excuse for ignorance in security work! Time they be trained to be educated about Sikhs
Stupidity is more appropriate because there is no excuse for security work!