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KABUL, AFGHANISTAN, December 27, 2003: The draft constitution now being considered by Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga is causing disquiet amongst the Hindu and Sikh community over what they see as its lack of protection for them as minority religious groups. Although what was once a large community has shrunk to just a few thousand, the remaining Hindu and Sikhs have tried to regain some of their rights since the end of the hardline Taliban regime, and have followed the development of a new constitution in the hope that it would enshrine tolerance towards local non-Muslims. “Article 3 talks only about respect for Islam, and does not mention other religions,” said Cherang Singh, one of three Hindu and Sikh delegates at the gathering. He believes that the stipulation that the head of state must be Muslim is discriminatory. “We, too, are Afghans, and our fathers were Afghans, so why do we not have the right to run for president in future?” In the draft, Islam is proclaimed the state religion although religious minorities are given freedom of worship. There have been Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan for centuries, although numbers dwindled in recent years because of prolonged conflict as well as discrimination. Unfair treatment reached a peak under the Taleban, which instituted rules to make Hindus and Sikhs wear specially-marked clothes.

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