Ken's Adviser Is Linked To Terror Group

[K Singh 82]

it's not just the evening standard - this has been on tv news media too.

speaking up and clearing Sant Ji and other shaheeds' names is fine - but how do we justify the fact that at the rally, on calendars and at other events and what not - the air india bombers were/are being glorified? How do you justify that? That's what's gonna keep coming up now, so I'd suggest we work on our answers

Vaheguroo Jee Kaa Khalsa, Vaheguroo Jee Kee Fatheh!!

the air india bombers? bhai sahib are we saying now that they were guilty?? the two singhs were cleared of any wrong doing, a court of law proved so...

Like Dabinderjit Singh said in the article, when you've had your mother and father killed, and there is no justice, you find it hard to condemn the person for picking up arms...are we not taught by our Guroo that it is righteous to pick up the sword if all other means have failed? Is that not what the shaheeds of our panth did? Im not trying to cause an arguement or anything along those lines at all...just purely trying to drive constrtuctive debates... we do need to work on our answers, and what better place to establish those answers than within the sangat...we need to do more parchaar of say the Anandpur Sahib resolution...taking the focus off '84 because automatically the public will link '84 with "terrorist" activities...we need to draw peoples attention to the fact Sikhs still arent recognised as Sikhs in the Indian Constitution and win people....this will create the history and more importantly facts behind '84...

Vaheguroo Jee Kaa Khalsa, Vaheguroo Jee Kee Fatheh!!

[wjkk wjkf]

it's not just the evening standard - this has been on tv news media too.

speaking up and clearing Sant Ji and other shaheeds' names is fine - but how do we justify the fact that at the rally, on calendars and at other events and what not - the air india bombers were/are being glorified? How do you justify that? That's what's gonna keep coming up now, so I'd suggest we work on our answers

Vaheguroo Jee Kaa Khalsa, Vaheguroo Jee Kee Fatheh!!

the air india bombers? bhai sahib are we saying now that they were guilty?? the two singhs were cleared of any wrong doing, a court of law proved so...

Like Dabinderjit Singh said in the article, when you've had your mother and father killed, and there is no justice, you find it hard to condemn the person for picking up arms...are we not taught by our Guroo that it is righteous to pick up the sword if all other means have failed? Is that not what the shaheeds of our panth did? Im not trying to cause an arguement or anything along those lines at all...just purely trying to drive constrtuctive debates... we do need to work on our answers, and what better place to establish those answers than within the sangat...we need to do more parchaar of say the Anandpur Sahib resolution...taking the focus off '84 because automatically the public will link '84 with "terrorist" activities...we need to draw peoples attention to the fact Sikhs still arent recognised as Sikhs in the Indian Constitution and win people....this will create the history and more importantly facts behind '84...

Vaheguroo Jee Kaa Khalsa, Vaheguroo Jee Kee Fatheh!!

pahji u know what i'm trying to say - it's hard enough trying to explain that to our own kaum forget non-sikhs. if the we arent even united about what happened at one point in history - how good do we look to those looking in at us from the outside? i'm sorry if that werent very clear from my last post lol but according to most people (not sure about myself) those singhs were guilty whether they got done for it or not - and 1 singh DID get done for it.

[Temporary]

Forum Topic Already Exists:-

http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?showtopic=36235

This is actually the third one opened... :D

[Nirvair S Khalsa]

This biased piece of writing by Andrew Gilligan is nonsense matched only by anti-Sikh prejudiced reporters such as Kim Bolan of the Vancouver Sun (the Canadian mouthpiece and propaganda machine of the Indian Government).

[lsingh]

it's not just the evening standard - this has been on tv news media too.

speaking up and clearing Sant Ji and other shaheeds' names is fine - but how do we justify the fact that at the rally, on calendars and at other events and what not - the air india bombers were/are being glorified? How do you justify that? That's what's gonna keep coming up now, so I'd suggest we work on our answers

Vaheguroo Jee Kaa Khalsa, Vaheguroo Jee Kee Fatheh!!

the air india bombers? bhai sahib are we saying now that they were guilty?? the two singhs were cleared of any wrong doing, a court of law proved so...

Like Dabinderjit Singh said in the article, when you've had your mother and father killed, and there is no justice, you find it hard to condemn the person for picking up arms...are we not taught by our Guroo that it is righteous to pick up the sword if all other means have failed? Is that not what the shaheeds of our panth did? Im not trying to cause an arguement or anything along those lines at all...just purely trying to drive constrtuctive debates... we do need to work on our answers, and what better place to establish those answers than within the sangat...we need to do more parchaar of say the Anandpur Sahib resolution...taking the focus off '84 because automatically the public will link '84 with "terrorist" activities...we need to draw peoples attention to the fact Sikhs still arent recognised as Sikhs in the Indian Constitution and win people....this will create the history and more importantly facts behind '84...

Vaheguroo Jee Kaa Khalsa, Vaheguroo Jee Kee Fatheh!!

pahji u know what i'm trying to say - it's hard enough trying to explain that to our own kaum forget non-sikhs. if the we arent even united about what happened at one point in history - how good do we look to those looking in at us from the outside? i'm sorry if that werent very clear from my last post lol but according to most people (not sure about myself) those singhs were guilty whether they got done for it or not - and 1 singh DID get done for it.

What about the evidence in Soft Target about Air India, that is fairly convincing that it was not the Sikhs who were behind the incident. No wonder journalists blame Sikhs when even our own lot blame us.

[Into the Light]

After reading this whole thread and watching all the negative attention Sikhs have been getting recently in Canada & Uk, it becomes apparent that we've badly failed in getting across the Sikh perspective of post 1978 onwards to anyone non-Sikh. How many non-Sikh sympathiser are there to the Sikh cause? Now compare this to Tibet...clearly we've gone wrong somewhere.

To completely place the blame on Indian propaganda is not sufficient, we've failed to raise our voice at every level...to the extent that many Sikhs don't know what happened.

After reviewing all the negative media sikhs have been getting we need to think of ways to get our point across. If we don't things are going go get much harder for us.

As a start, maybe producing a well-funded professional documententary that is very hard hitting and gets the point across instantly that is geared at non-Siks based on fact from reputable organisations?

[SaRpAnCh]

After reading this whole thread and watching all the negative attention Sikhs have been getting recently in Canada & Uk, it becomes apparent that we've badly failed in getting across the Sikh perspective of post 1978 onwards to anyone non-Sikh. How many non-Sikh sympathiser are there to the Sikh cause? Now compare this to Tibet...clearly we've gone wrong somewhere.

To completely place the blame on Indian propaganda is not sufficient, we've failed to raise our voice at every level...to the extent that many Sikhs don't know what happened.

After reviewing all the negative media sikhs have been getting we need to think of ways to get our point across. If we don't things are going go get much harder for us.

As a start, maybe producing a well-funded professional documententary that is very hard hitting and gets the point across instantly that is geared at non-Siks based on fact from reputable organisations?

documentry

[Bored]

After reading this whole thread and watching all the negative attention Sikhs have been getting recently in Canada & Uk, it becomes apparent that we've badly failed in getting across the Sikh perspective of post 1978 onwards to anyone non-Sikh. How many non-Sikh sympathiser are there to the Sikh cause? Now compare this to Tibet...clearly we've gone wrong somewhere.

To completely place the blame on Indian propaganda is not sufficient, we've failed to raise our voice at every level...to the extent that many Sikhs don't know what happened.

After reviewing all the negative media sikhs have been getting we need to think of ways to get our point across. If we don't things are going go get much harder for us.

As a start, maybe producing a well-funded professional documententary that is very hard hitting and gets the point across instantly that is geared at non-Siks based on fact from reputable organisations?

I don't agree with you fully.

The tibet thing is a recent "FRESH" thing compared to 84 etc. WHen people look at a sikh, they will see a terrorist and not want to take the chances of getting educated...its ignorance. WHen people see Tibet, they think of buddist...peaceful poeple. Even though SIkhism is peaceful, the white man wont see that cuz he wont take the time to learn, they'll just see a brown dude with a rag on his head and a AK just like the taliban. The media is very well at fault for spreading false crap and they have a lot of power in playing with people's minds no matter how much anyone says media is bias. This dam article seems to be judging sikhs based on a forum! How the hell do they know who is behind the monitors!!! dam kids mayb? All the info they get is from india and i blame the media for using india as their source and not being very wise 4 it.

All i gotta say at the end of the day is, India has succeeded with their bulls*** propaganda since it seem to be working very well. Sikhs are fighting agaisnt a nation, its not a very easy task for those who didnt notice that!

btw there enough documentries out there that have proven plenty. The only problem is its not staring some1 like michael moore.

[Nirvair S Khalsa]

This is a prime example of how the world's media is a watching waiting for a Sikh terror story. Now I actually like Dabinderjit Singh as he's probably one of the few well spoken articulate speakers we have although I am not up for the whole current Khalistan agenda.

The following is a speech by Bhai Dabinderjit Singh Ji at the Bristol City Council House on 1^st April 2008, providing a glimpse of the huge Sikh sacrifices made in the World Wars.

The speech is from around 22.15 to 25.25

http://www.bristol.public-i.tv/site/player/pl_compact.php?a=14173&t=0&m=wm&l=en_GB

The Lord Mayor later said this was one of the most best and moving speeches in the meeting that day.

http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?showtopic=36432

[Nirvair S Khalsa]

Ken's adviser is linked to terror group

Ken Livingstone has appointed a former member of a banned terrorist organisation to the board of Transport for London.

Until 2001, Dabinderjit Singh, a civil servant, was a member of the International Sikh Youth Federation, a UK-based group banned under British antiterror laws.

The then Home Office minister, Lord Bassam, said British-based ISYF members were a "threat to national security" and the group had carried out " assassinations, bombings and kidnappings" overseas.

The ISYF plotted a number of unsuccessful attacks in the UK and one of its members was convicted of the 1985 Air India bombing off Ireland, the deadliest single aircraft terror attack in history.

After it was banned the ISYF dissolved, creating a successor body, the Sikh Federation UK, whose executive committee and senior members - including Mr Singh - are largely the same as the ISYF's, and whose objectives are the same. Sikh Federation UK has received extensive support from Mr Livingstone.

The Sikh Federation UK's official 2008 calendar glorifies terrorist "martyrs" - including the assassins of Indira Gandhi and the mastermind of the1985 Air India bombing. Last June, Mr Singh spoke at a Sikh Federation UK rally - sanctioned by Mr Livingstone - in Trafalgar Square at which another speaker praised terrorism and suicide bombing and at which the banners of another banned Sikh terrorist group, Babbar Khalsa, were on open display. Mr

Livingstone has worked closely with the Sikh Federation UK, meeting its leadership - including Mr Singh - as recently as six weeks ago.

According to a 29 February City Hall press release, they presented him with a shield in honour of "the work he has done in support of the Sikh community".

The press release described Mr Singh as a member of the Sikh Federation. He described himself to the Standard as an "adviser" to the federation's executive.

The Mayor also allowed the free use of City Hall and the London Assembly chamber for at least two events organised by the Sikh Federation UK - the "World Sikh Summit," on 17 September last year, and a conference on "making Sikhs visible to decision-makers" on 1 February 2006. Mr Singh spoke at both events.

Mr Singh has had at least one private one-on-one meeting with the Mayor - in September 2006 - and was appointed by him to the TfL board in the same month. He is paid at least £22,000 a year for this appointment.

Mr Singh told the Standard today: "I was a sympathiser of the ISYF but the only time I came into the limelight with the ISYF was in 2000.

"The organisation was put up for proscription about two months later. When an organisation [the ISYF] is proscribed, it's the organisation, not the individuals, that are banned."

He said he was "not disputing" that there were links between the ISYF and the Sikh Federation but said the Sikh Federation was a "reputable organisation".

He described the Home Office claims of "assassinations, bombings and kidnappings" by the ISYF as a "generic phrase" and said the ban was "illogical".

The Sikh Federation UK - not to be confused with the moderate British Sikh Federation - claims to be a peaceful organisation.

However, the clearest indication of its true sympathies is its official 2008 calendar. Headed "Never forget the sacrifices made by Sikhs in the last 30 years for freedom and justice," it is plastered with pictures of Sikh terrorists and " martyrs", including Talwinder Singh, the mastermind of the Air India bombing, and Beant Singh, the assassin of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi.

Asked whether it was acceptable to honour the assassin of a prime minister, Dabinderjit Singh said: "We are highlighting people who are martyrs ... There is another side to the story [of the assassination]. Indira Gandhi was responsible for killing many thousands."

The three most senior officers of the Sikh Federation UK are the former leaders of the ISYF. The federation's chair, Amrik Singh Gill, was the ISYF's president. Its vice-president, Kuldeep Singh Chaheru, and its general secretary, Narinderjit Singh, were vice-presidents of the ISYF. Amrik Singh Gill and Narinderjit Singh also met Mr Livingstone this February.

Atma Singh, the Mayor's former Asian affairs adviser - himself a Sikh - told the Standard he had warned the Mayor about the Sikh Federation UK.

"In London, the Sikh Federation UK has very little support," he said. "Their power base is limited to half a dozen temples in the Midlands. But City Hall wanted to build them up and give them the same credibility as they did with the [fundamentalist-Muslim Association of Britain." The ISYF was founded to campaign for an independent Sikh state in India, known as Khalistan, and avenge the 1984 Golden Temple massacre of Sikh militants by the Indian government.

The Home Office claims British members channelled money and arms to the Indian branch of the organisation.

The ISYF was involved in the bombing of Air India flight 182 over the Atlantic. Three hundred and twenty nine people, including 114 children, were killed by a bomb planted on the plane en route from Montreal to London.

The bombing was mainly the work of the Babbar Khalsa. However, the only man to be convicted over it, British-Canadian Inderjit Singh Reyat, from Birmingham, was a member of the ISYF.

ISYF members in India were responsible for indiscriminate killings of civilians, including women and children, during the Sikh insurgency in the Punjab from the early Eighties to 1993.

The ISYF also plotted a number of murders in Britain, mainly of visiting Indian politicians. The plots were intercepted by British security forces and foiled.

The ISYF is also suspected of involvement in the still-unsolved murder of a moderate, anti-ISYF Sikh newspaper editor in Southall.

There is no suggestion that Dabinderjit Singh has been personally involved in facilitating or carrying out an act of terrorism, or in ISYF activity since the group was banned.

However, on 3 June last year he spoke at a rally in Trafalgar Square, co-organised by the Sikh Federation UK, at which the crossed-Kalashnikov banner of the Babbar Khalsa group was on display.

At the rally, another speaker, Avtar Sanghera, praised a Babbar Khalsa leader, Jagtar Singh Hawara, who is on death row in India for taking part in a suicide attack on the chief minister of the Punjab.

"We are proud of this brother of ours," Mr Sanghera said. "With God's blessings, more men like Hawara will be born."

Mr Sanghera also said the Babbar Khalsa had "set its cross-hairs" on three Sikh "apostates" who would be "wiped off the face of the Punjab".

Glorifying terrorism and supporting a banned terrorist organisation are criminal offences under the terror laws.

Adrian Hunt, an expert in counterterrorism law at the University of Birmingham, said the footage of the rally - shown on YouTube - gave "sufficient material for the matter to be inquired into very seriously by the authorities".

Dabinderjit Singh told the Standard: "Any community, you have individuals who get up and say things and you think, 'What the hell are you doing'. There was a group of individuals [at the rally] who decided they were going to push the law to its limits. I have no time for those people - they are totally missing the point."

He said that Mr Livingstone "allowed us to use Trafalgar Square". Mr Singh also said that the Mayor had been invited to address the rally but had refused, saying he "rarely spoke on a Sunday".

Asked for his views on the armed struggle, Mr Singh said: "If someone has had their mother and father killed and they decide to take up arms because they feel there is no justice for them, it's very difficult to condemn them, because they're trying to defend themselves."

Dabinderjit Singh is described by Sikh analysts as the "respectable face" of Sikh separatist militancy. He is a senior civil servant with the National Audit Office and has been awarded the OBE.

Reports of the ceremony describe him as an ISYF member and state that he wore the ISYF insignia to the investiture. The ISYF was legal at that point and enjoyed close relations with some British politicians, who protested against the Government ban.

Mr Singh, who still has a place on the TfL board, would have attended board meetings and decided upon new fare rises, financing and budgets, proposed lines extensions, strategic planning and health and safety issues.

Mr Livingstone declined to comment.

A few questions raised by another Sikh that the 'Evening Standard' and 'Andrew Gilligan' should think about before writing and publishing such articles:

If Dabinderjit Singh was appointed to the Transport for London Board in September 2006, why has Andrew Gilligan waited 20 months before pointing this out?

When Dabinderjit Singh was appointed to the Transport for London Board was he a member/sympathiser/associate of a banned group?

If Dabinderjit Singh is a 'respected' senior civil servant who has presumably been security cleared, is there are issue of him serving on the Transport for London Board?

I think the article incorrectly states (in two places) Inderjit Singh Reyat was a member of the ISYF. For the last 22 years and in Canadian courts it has been stated he was a member of Babbar Khalsa. Has Andrew Gilligan found new information?

Atma Singh, a former President of the Indian Overseas Congress (Congress was responsible for the killing of around 20,000 Sikhs in over 130 towns/cities in India in the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogroms) appears to be one of the sources for this story. Was he not sacked by the GLA for incompetence, lost in his employment tribunal and was found to have put the lives of Londoners at risk following 7/7?