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Hateful assault still
stings for Sikh mistaken for a Muslim
September 11, 2003 SEATAC -- The wall calendar showing men with turbans and long beards hasdisappeared. Gone, too, are the bruises on his scalp, the 10 stitches that closed a bloody gash and most of the headaches. What remain are the searing memories of an unprovoked attack, the fear that it could happen again and the reminders that life won't ever be quite the same. Karnail "Kail" Singh is a Renton resident, India native, world
traveler, poet, writer and SeaTac motel owner. What he is not is a Muslim.
But a transient apparently thought he was. Five weeks after the 9/11 attacks,
the man clubbed Singh unconscious in the sunlit Singh, 49, practices Sikhism, a religion founded in 1469 in the Punjab region of India. Sikh religious code requires men to wear turbans and not to shave their beards, leading some people to confuse them with Muslims. But Singh is clean-shaven and his short hair is uncovered -- he is not a baptized Sikh, he explained -- and figures his assailant, John Bethel, just doesn't like foreigners. He said Bethel was never a customer but had entered the lobby a week after 9/11, telling him, "Go back to your country!" Hate crimes against Arab Americans, Muslims, Sikhs and other groups
in the United States spiked in the weeks following 9/11, then decreased,
according to the FBI. Nearly two years later, when someone asks him about
the assault or when he hears about others being attacked for their ethnicity
or national origin, "it reminds "All the pictures come back," Singh said. "I become conscious
of myself, what I'm doing, where I'm going." Bethel was sentenced
last Though he took down his Sikh calendar in the motel lobby to be on the safe side, he still sports a sticker in the back window of his SUV that reads, "I'm proud to be a Sikh." Singh received hundreds of cards of support from his customers and wrote a first-person account of his assault for Indian newspapers. "Time is a big healer," he said. "People can't remember all that happened in their childhood. So with time, I think it will go away." Source: SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER Sikh Americans, Karnail "Kail" Singh Attacked
A 60-year-old man, who gave a Seattle address, was jailed in an investigation of second-degree assault after a caning attack that sent Karnail Kail Singh, 47, of Renton, to the hospital for nine stitches in his head on Oct. 19. Police were also seeking a teenager in a blindside assault on Rubinder Singh, 23, no relation, on the night of Oct. 20 in Kent County. Muslim extremists have been blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, there have been a number of attacks on innocent Muslims and Sikhs in the United States. “I don’t blame anybody. Maybe he’s an illiterate, uneducated person,” said Kail Singh, a U.S. citizen from India and owner of the SeaTac Crest Motor Inn in SeaTac. Singh said his assailant entered the motel two or three weeks ago and snarled, “You guys go back to your country. We are coming there to kick your ass,” then left. He said he was quoting room rates on the telephone about 8 a.m. on Oct. 19 when the man entered the lobby and shouted “You still here? Go to Allah!” and knocked him unconscious with two blows from a wood and metal cane. “I’m scared. There’s no security,” Kail Singh said. The suspect — a man known for bumming coffee along a commercial strip outside the airport — was arrested in a bathroom near the motel. King County sheriff’s deputies said he was jailed for investigation of second-degree assault but also could be charged with malicious harassment, a felony carrying tougher penalties. Kent police said a witness reported hearing a boy about 14 say, “I’m going to bomb on him,” shortly before the attack on Rubinder Singh, a cab driver. Rubinder Singh was crossing the street about 8 p.m. on Oct. 20 when he was hit in the face from behind and knocked to the ground by someone who then fled the scene. He refused medical attention. “It’s just because of my skin color that they hit me,”
he said. |
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