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Historic Breakthrough
By News East-West
Toronto will become the first Canadian city to allow Sikhs to wear the kirpan inside courthouses. A smaller version of the sword, the kirpan is one of the five symbols that a baptized Sikh must wear.
The decision comes after incidents involving baptized Sikhs being barred from courts.
Though the Canadian Supreme Court in a historic decision in 2006 allowed Sikhs to carry the kirpan in public places with certain conditions, there have been cases where persons wearing the kirpan have been denied entry.
Any baptized Sikh going to a court in Toronto now will have to just inform the court officer that he or she is carrying the kirpan. It must pass the metal detector.
The kirpan should not be more than 7.5 inches in length. Its blade should not exceed four inches and it must be worn under clothing all the time, according to the World Sikh Organization which worked with the Toronto Police, the provincial Ontario Human Rights Commission and the provincial home ministry (the ministry of the attorney general) to formulate the new policy.
The decision comes in the wake of two incidents where Sikhs were stopped from entering the courthouses premises.
In the first case, a Sikh woman carrying the kirpan was not allowed entry to the Old City Hall courthouse.. In the second incident, a Sikh man acting as a juror was allowed entry in the morning but denied re-entry after lunch.
“This is a step in the right direction, combining respect for a person’s religious observances with accommodation principles...” said Toronto chief commissioner Barbara Hall.
After the historic verdict by the Supreme Court in 2006, the kirpan issue hot up in Canada in January last year after four Sikhs were barred from entering the Quebec provincial assembly in Quebec City.
The four Sikhs had gone to appear before a assembly committee debating a bill to accommodate religious minorities with visible symbols such hijab and kirpan.
But security staff stopped them from carrying a potential weapon inside.
The Sikhs constitute the bulk of the million-strong Indian community in Canada.
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