Sikh teenager wins bangle discrimination case

thanks : telegraph.co.uk

A Sikh teenager who was excluded from school after refusing to take off a religious bangle has won her discrimination case at the High Court.

Sarika Watkins-Singh, 14, was reprimanded for breaking the "no jewellery" rule at Aberdare Girls' School in South Wales last year.

In court, she said wearing the slim steel bracelet was as important to her as it was to the England cricketer Monty Panesar.

Sarika, who is Punjabi-Welsh, claimed she was the victim of unlawful discrimination when she was first taught in isolation and finally excluded last November.

The school, at which Sarika was the only Sikh among 600 girls, does not permit jewellery other than wristwatches and ear studs.

But Mr Justice Silber ruled that the bangle - known as the kara - was a symbol of her Sikh faith and not a piece of jewellery.

He said that the school was guilty of indirect discrimination under race relations and equality laws.

Sarika, from Cwmbach, near Aberdare, will now return to the school in September wearing the bangle.

Outside court she said: "I am overwhelmed by the outcome and it's marvellous to know that the long journey I've been on has finally come to an end.

"I'm so happy to know that no-one else will go through what me and my family have gone through. I just want to say that I am a proud Welsh and Punjabi Sikh girl."

Her mother Sinita, 38, added: "We are over the moon. It is just such a relief."

In February, Sarika enrolled in another school, Mountain Ash Comprehensive, which allowed her to wear the kara, but her parents said the move had disrupted her schooling.

Last month, the family went to Downing Street to hand in a petition, calling on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to intervene in the matter "to show discrimination is totally unacceptable".

The petition gained the backing of 150 gurdwaras - the main Sikh religious institutions - and more than 200 Sikh organisations and 70 non-Sikh organisations.

More than 100 MPs also offered support.

Anna Fairclough, Liberty's legal officer who was representing the Singhs, said: "This common sense judgment makes clear you must have a very good reason before interfering with someone's religious freedom.

"Our great British traditions of religious tolerance and race equality have been rightly upheld today."