Fremont, CA— A community forum will be held in Fremont next week to discuss issues affecting minorities in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the war in Iraq. The keynote address for the evening will be delivered by California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer. The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) encourage community members to attend the forum, which will be held on Thursday evening, March 10th (details below). A SALDEF representative will also make a presentation at the event. Entitled Our Community: Who Belongs, the forum hopes to bring community members together to nurture solidarity against all hateful speech and acts, and in particular against those directed against Muslims and Sikhs. Attorney General Lockyer has been a leader on hate crimes legislation, advocating successfully for the first felony hate crime law in the nation in 1991 when he was a California state legislator. More recently, he opened the Office of Immigrant Assistance, created a Civil Rights Unit, and established Rapid Response Protocols for hate crimes. Lockyer also has also been a champion of religious freedom, supporting Sikhs’ right to wear their articles of faith in public places. This forum is being organized by an ad-hoc committee of groups. The committee urges all concerned community members to attend this event and further collaborate to address hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents. SALDEF, the oldest national Sikh American civil rights organization (formerly known as SMART), has worked with numerous families throughout Northern California over the past several years, who have been affected by crimes motivated by hate and bias. If you have any questions about this vigil, please email SALDEF at info@saldef or call 202-393-2700 Ext. 29. WHEN: Thursday, March 10, 2005 TIME: 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. WHERE: Irvington High School 41800 Blacow Rd. Fremont, CA 94538 Please forward this message to your contacts in the Bay Area and post it at your local Gurdwara(s). ### END ###
