{"id":5193,"date":"2011-04-05T10:46:27","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T10:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2011\/04\/05\/edls-sikh-spokesman-faces-excommunication\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T12:59:19","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T12:59:19","slug":"edls-sikh-spokesman-faces-excommunication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/05\/edls-sikh-spokesman-faces-excommunication\/","title":{"rendered":"EDL\u2019s Sikh spokesman faces excommunication"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Guramit Singh told: \u2018Choose EDL or Sikhism\u2019<\/h3>\n
THE English Defence League\u2019s Sikh spokesman is facing expulsion from his faith.<\/strong>

\nSikh groups in Britain have threatened Guramit Singh with excommunication by appealing to the highest religious authority in their holy city of Amritsar if he fails to denounce the nationalist organisation and cease his inflammatory remarks.

\nIn a recent BBC documentary, Who\u2019s afraid of the EDL?, Mr Singh, from Nottingham, said that Sikhs have been trying to \u2018protect\u2019 the world from Islam for hundreds of years. He was also heard quoting the founder of the religion, Guru Nanak, as part of an offensive speech condemning Muslims communities.

\nA number of the most prominent British Sikh organisations say that Mr Singh\u2019s Islamophobic comments threaten to bring the religion into disrepute. Known collectively as \u2018Sikhs against the EDL\u2019, the campaign group formed for the EDL\u2019s controversial Luton rally in February 2011 has called for Mr. Singh to publicly denounce the rightwing group by the end of the Vaisakhi festival on 13th April. Failure to do so will result in a direct appeal to the leader of the Akal Takht, the highest seat of the religion worldwide.

\nThe threat follows a joint statement from a number of prominent British Sikhs urging members of their faith to condemn the League. Signatories from the wider community, including Labour MPs Virendra Sharma and Valerie Vaz, and Labour MEP Claude Moraes, criticised the EDL\u2019s tactics of \u2018divide and rule\u2019 and the \u2018spread of mistrust\u2019 within their communities.

\nSpeaking about the ultimatum, one of the organisers of the Sikhs Against the EDL campaign Varinder Singh said: \u201cThe Sikh Community has clearly condemned Guramit Singh’s public actions which are being used as a political stunt by the EDL.

\n\u201cHis views do not reflect the Sikh faith or the community and must be stopped to prevent further damage to inter-faith relations.\u201d

\nOriginator of the joint statement condemning Sikh involvement in the EDL, Balwinder Singh Rana, said: \u201cSome of the largest Sikh and Hindu organisations in this country have signed our statement, and we have the support of MPs, MEPs, councillors and religious leaders across Britain.

\n\u201cPeople of all faiths are disgusted by the antics of the EDL, who try to isolate and scapegoat the Muslim community.\u201d<\/div>\n

\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guramit Singh told: \u2018Choose EDL or Sikhism\u2019 THE English Defence League\u2019s Sikh spokesman is facing expulsion from his faith. Sikh groups in Britain have threatened Guramit Singh with excommunication by appealing to the highest religious authority in their holy city of Amritsar if he fails to denounce the nationalist organisation and cease his inflammatory remarks. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}