(Ottawa) Former Minister of National Defense Harjit Sajjan denies having ordered the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to prioritize evacuating Afghans of the Sikh faith during the fall of Kabul in August 2021. He claims to have been a supporter transmission, not a source of pressure.
Daily life The Globe and Mail reported Thursday that the minister personally intervened to remove a group of 225 people from the religious minority from the country to the detriment of Canadian citizens or Afghans with a link to Canada.
According to confidential Canadian military sources who were on the ground during the last evacuation flights, Afghans of the Sikh faith were not considered a priority, given their lack of ties with Canada, according to the publication.
“I did not order the Canadian Armed Forces to give priority to Sikhs,” said Minister Sajjan in a statement first sent to the Globe and Mailwhich his office then shared with other media outlets.
The man who was deployed to Afghanistan three times during the time he served in the FAC explains having relayed to the chain of command information on a group of some 225 Afghans of the Sikh faith who had taken refuge in a temple (gurdwara) from Kabul.
But “I did not order the CAF to undertake a rescue mission in a gurdwara or anywhere else,” Sajjan said. “My message to the NGO was the same as the CAF was giving directly to Afghan Sikhs through their own channels: move towards the airport,” he added.
He even went so far as to accuse the publication of drawing conclusions based on racist bias.
I can only assume that if I didn’t wear a turban, no one would question whether my actions were appropriate.
Harjit Sajjan, former Minister of National Defense
The World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO) sided with Harit Sajjan’s interpretation, arguing that in addition to being “unfounded,” the “allegations” appeared “influenced by prejudice against his Sikh identity.” “.
In a statement sent Thursday, the Department of National Defense argued that all evacuation operations had been carried out “in accordance with the directives of the Government of Canada and the Minister of National Defense.”
The orders “came from the chief of staff and his operational level commanders,” and decisions were made based on “the risks associated with carrying out these operations,” the ministry added in the same email.
The Sikhs in question could not be extirpated from Afghanistan in August 2021, when the Taliban regime regained control. However, they managed to escape on board planes chartered by other governments, including that of India, several months later.
PHOTO NALINDER NANU, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Sikh refugees from Afghanistan hold placards as they demand Pakistani and Afghan governments to secure Sikh and Hindu families and their places of worship, during a protest in Amritsar on August 27, 2020.
A persecuted religious minority
Sikhs are a very small religious minority in Afghanistan, a predominantly Muslim country where they face discrimination. In March 2020, a targeted attack by Daesh (Islamic State armed group) in a gurdwara in Kabul caused at least 25 victims.
After the attack, “about 200 members of the Sikh community left the country for India, saying they left due to lack of security and insufficient government protection,” according to a Department of Defense report. American state.
The seriousness of the situation prompted elected officials to write to the federal Minister of Immigration at the time, Marco Mendicino, to urge him to create a special program to relocate Sikhs and Hindus to Canada.
The missive was signed by Conservative, New Democrat and Green MPs. The former Conservative Minister of National Defense, Peter MacKay, also initialed it.