By Mata Press Service

The World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO) is calling, once again, on the Trudeau Liberal government to recognize its humanitarian duty and immediately evacuate Afghan Sikhs and Hindus to Canada.

The renewed urgent call comes after the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for an attack on a Sikh temple in Afghanistan that killed one community member and a Taliban fighter.

“We need the Government of Canada to step up and bring Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan to safety.  The community is not going to accept any more excuses. This is a question of political will,” said WSO President Tejinder Singh Sidhu said.

“We have seen the expedited evacuation of vulnerable refugees from Afghanistan and other countries and we believe Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are just as needful and deserving of such an evacuation today.  Every day we wait for means another day our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan are facing terror and death,” he said in a statement.

We are willing to do our part by sponsoring the evacuation.  We need the Government of Canada to do its part and create the program”

In a message posted on its Amaq propaganda site, the Islamic State (IS) group said last Saturday's attack targeted Hindus and Sikhs and the "apostates" who protected them in "an act of support for the Messenger of Allah".

IS said one of its fighters "penetrated a temple for Hindu and Sikh polytheists in Kabul, after killing its guard, and opened fire on the pagans inside with his machine gun and hand grenades".

Two were killed and at least seven others wounded in the raid.

While IS is a Sunni Islamist group like the Taliban, the two are bitter rivals and greatly diverge on ideological grounds.

The number of Sikhs living in Afghanistan has dwindled to around 200, compared to about half a million in the 1970s.

Most of those who remain are traders involved in selling herbal medicines and electronic goods brought from India.

In recent months, many impoverished Sikhs including women and children took refuge in the complex that was attacked on Saturday.

The community has faced repeated attacks over the years. At least 25 people were killed in March 2020 when gunmen stormed another Sikh temple in Kabul in an attack that was also claimed by IS.

Since 2016 WSO has been advocating on behalf of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus and asking the Government of Canada to create a special resettlement program.

“The question isn't whether there will be another attack. The question is when the next attack will be,” WSO legal counsel Balpreet Singh told the Canadian Parliamentary  Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, last June.

“These are extremely vulnerable individuals who do not have a future in Afghanistan or in India. They're looking desperately to Canada to save their lives. It's been frustrating to advocate without real results on their behalf for this long,” he said.

New Canadian Media reported last March that the WSO is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to create an expedited pathway for Afghan Sikh and Hindu refugee families to come to Canada, like the one designed to help Ukrainians flee the Russian invasion of their homeland.

WSO’s call for an expedited pathway came as the cities of Calgary, Vancouver and Kelowna,  prepared to receive 98 Afghan Sikh and Hindu refugee families.

The arriving families had fled Afghanistan to India in 2015 and were sponsored through private applications which were spearheaded by the Manmeet Singh Bhullar Foundation with support from the WSO.

The arrival of these refugees followed a seven-year long process for the approval of their refugee applications by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said the WSO.

NCM reported that while many are applauding Canada’s outpouring of humanitarian support for the nearly two million refugees who have fled Ukraine since the Russian attack of Feb. 24, Canadians remain sharply critical of the unequal treatment given to displaced people from other war-torn lands such as Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine and Iraq.

“This is racism to the core,” said Professor Nour El Kadri, of the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa.

He pointed out that while Canada promised to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees during the Syrian crisis in 2015 and 40,000 Afghans after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, it has not set any limit for Ukrainian refugees.

A recent Angus Reid Institute study also showed that when it comes to welcoming refugees, more Canadians are willing to open their hearts and homes to those fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine than those escaping the Syrian civil war.

The study found that four-in-five Canadians support the Liberal government’s plan to allow unlimited Ukrainian refugees into the country in the coming weeks and months, a considerably higher level of support than was shown for Syrian refugees in 2015.

Overall support at the time for welcoming a limited number of Syrians was approximately half of the support now for bringing in an unlimited number of Ukrainians, the study found.

Eventually, more than 73,000 Syrian refugees resettled in Canada.

– with Agencies