{"id":455,"date":"2004-12-21T23:32:52","date_gmt":"2004-12-22T05:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=455"},"modified":"2004-12-21T23:34:05","modified_gmt":"2004-12-22T05:34:05","slug":"playwright-hiding-after-sikh-fury-shuts-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=455","title":{"rendered":"Playwright Hiding after Sikh Fury Shuts Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, it seems as if the Sikhs in Britain<\/a> have stolen a page from the all-too-typical Moslem playbook.<\/p>\n

The author of a play that triggered violent protests by Sikhs in Birmingham, central England, has gone into hiding amid threats against her life, friends were quoted as saying.<\/p>\n

Word that Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti had fled her home on the advice of police emerged a day after the Birmingham Repertory Theatre said it was abandoning further performances of her black comedy “Behzti” (Dishonour).<\/p>\n

Sikh anger at the play’s depiction of rape and murder in a fictional gurdwara, or Sikh temple, turned violent on Saturday, with several hundred protesters trying to storm the theatre.<\/p>\n

Three men were arrested, five police officers hurt, the sell-out audience of some 600 evacuated, and several hundred pounds worth of theatre equipment damaged.<\/p>\n

“She has been threatened with murder and told to go into hiding by the police,” said filmmaker Shakila Taranum Mann, a friend of Bhatti, an actress turned playwright who is herself Sikh.<\/p>\n

“She is personally paying a high price. She feels this is an attempt to censor her. It is mob rule,” Mann was quoted by London’s Evening Standard newspaper as saying.<\/p>\n

“I spoke to her after the play was axed and she feels she is in the eye of the storm,” added another friend, Nirjay Mahindra.<\/p>\n

Stuart Rogers, executive director of the Birmingham Repertory Company, said Monday his company had decided “very reluctantly” to cancel the play “purely on safety grounds” and not under pressure over its content.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As ugly as this affair has been, here is where the Sikhs are so sadly reminiscent of the Moslems.<\/p>\n

Britain is home to some 336,000 Sikhs, most of whom trace their roots to Punjab, with a handful via West Africa. An estimated 40,000 live in the Birmingham area.<\/p>\n

Sikhs make up 19 million of India’s billion-plus population.<\/p>\n

The Sikh Federation in Britain said in a statement it felt the theatre “has incited racial hatred”, arguing that it “knew full well” the play’s subject matter would offend Sikhs.<\/p>\n

The group, which describes itself as the sole Sikh political party in the country, said it was moved to speak out in response to press reports of the protest.<\/p>\n

“The violent scenes by a small minority of the protesters on Saturday have been blown out of all proportion,” it said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No apologies for the violence. No condemnation of the radicals. Only finger-pointing towards others.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I know little of the Sikh faith, but their actions certainly ring familiar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it seems as if the Sikhs in Britain have stolen a page from the all-too-typical Moslem playbook. The author of a play that triggered violent protests by Sikhs in Birmingham, central England, has gone into hiding amid threats against her life, friends were quoted as saying. Word that Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti had fled her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}