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Viewing cable 07KABUL3602, WORKING TO ACCOMODATE RELIGIOUS MINORITIES

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
07KABUL3602 2007-10-23 12:50 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED Embassy Kabul
VZCZCXRO6965
OO RUEHDBU RUEHIK RUEHPW RUEHYG
DE RUEHBUL #3602 2961250
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 231250Z OCT 07
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1068
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 4256
RUMICEA/USCENTCOM INTEL CEN MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
UNCLAS KABUL 003602 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR SCA.FO DAS GASTRIGHT, SCA/A,G/IWI 
STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE 
NSC FOR JWOOD 
OSD FOR KIMMETT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPOL KIRF PREL PHUM AF
SUBJECT: WORKING TO ACCOMODATE RELIGIOUS MINORITIES 
 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary:  Hindu and Sikh leaders recently contacted 
Human Rights Officer to register a complaint that local 
Afghan residents had restricted ritual cremation rites.  The 
Afghan Ministry of Hajj and Islamic affairs assured us that 
it will work with this small religious minority to balance 
its needs against the interests of the larger community. 
This incident sheds light on how nascent Afghan government 
institutions are beginning to execute their responsibility to 
protect minority rights.  End summary. 
 
SIKHS AND HINDUS IN THE AFGHAN CONTEXT 
====================================== 
 
2.  (SBU) Post Human Rights Officer recently met with Atwar 
Singh and Ronder Singh, the chief representatives of the 
Hindu and Sikh communities in Kabul.  Both men were born in 
Afghanistan and speak Dari, Pashto and Urdu.  They requested 
the meeting over a September 27 case in which local Muslims 
blocked the ritual cremation of the corpse of an elderly 
Hindu man, saying the ceremony would pollute the air and 
frighten the children.  Messrs. Singh told Human Rights 
Officer the history of Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan, 
saying that both groups made up a significant part of 
Afghanistan,s population in the past, but that numbers had 
begun to drop in the 1970s and that there are now about 500 
Hindus and Sikhs living in Afghanistan, mostly in Kabul. 
During the 1990s, waves of attacks on Hindu temples by 
ordinary Afghans complicated relations between the Sikhs and 
their Afghan neighbors.  Atwar Singh told Poloff that, under 
the Taliban, security actually improved, but restrictions on 
Sikhs increased.  Sikhs and Hindus were shunned and made to 
wear distinguishing clothing. 
 
LAND DISPUTE AT ISSUE AS WELL 
============================= 
 
3. (SBU) Ronder Singh said he cremation issue is complicated 
by a land dispute.  The area where the Sikhs and Hindus live 
and have their main temple -- Jada-e-Maiwand in southern 
Kabul -- was granted to them in 1919 by then-Interior 
Minister Arbatan Singh, but no clear title to the land 
exists.  Singh said that a petition was presented to local 
authorities to build a modern crematory there but officials 
suggested it be built much further out of Kabul. 
 
MEASURED AFGHAN GOVT RESPONSE 
============================= 
 
4.  (SBU) In an October 04 meeting with the Ministry of Haji 
and Islamic Affairs, which is responsible for monitoring 
religious freedom issues, Deputy Minister of Social Affairs 
Qazi Sulaiman Hamid told Human Rights Officer that he knew of 
the recent complaint, characterizing it as a neighborhood 
dispute.  He noted that Hindus and Sikhs had been allowed in 
the past to burn their dead under special dispensation from 
the ministry and that his ministry supported the Hindu and 
Sikhs, desire to adhere to their customs.  When Human Rights 
Officer followed up on October 23, Hamid Edayatullah, the 
director of the Religious Freedom Department, said that the 
local residents who had blocked the September 27 cremation 
had promised they would not interfere in future cremations, 
and that there had been no further complaints to his ministry 
from either Hindus or Sikhs. 
 
5.  (SBU) We will continue to reach out to the Hindus, Sikhs 
and other minorities and encourage the ministry in its 
efforts to protect the rights of religious minorities 
generally. 
WOOD