By Alex Christodoulides
Queens religious leaders and elected officials denounced intolerance at a news conference Monday, four days after a swastika was found scrawled on a car near Electchester.
The chilling discovery was made the morning of July 3, when a couple returned to their sedan parked at the corner of Jewel Avenue and 161st Street near the Electchester housing complex, the 107th Precinct told City Councilman James Gennaro's (D-Fresh Meadows) office.
The swastika was only the most recent in a string of incidents involving religious intolerance in the borough, starting with the May 5 theft of a statue of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila from the front yard of a Filipino cultural and religious center in Jamaica Hill, and Gennaro gathered community leaders at his office in Fresh Meadows Monday to speak out against hate crimes.
In separate incidents in June, two Sikh students were taunted for their head coverings and one's hair was cut. As part of their religion, Sikhs do not cut their hair and the men are required to grow beards.
“Vandalism and violence are terrible crimes under any circumstances, but there's a deeper cause for alarm when they're perpetrated out of ethnic or religious hate,” Gennaro said.
Richmond Hill High School student Jagmohan Singh Premi, 18, was punched in the face June 4 by a classmate who also tried to remove his patka, the small turban that covers his hair, Gennaro said. It is not clear whether any arrests were made in the incident.
Five days later an unidentified student at PS 219 in Kew Gardens Hills cut the hair of female classmate Gurprit Kaur, 12, and had previously harassed Kaur and her brother Talwinder for their head coverings and the fact they do not cut their hair. That student was suspended, the Manhattan-based Sikh Coalition said.
Sikh Educational Foundation President Harpreet Singh Toor said Monday that the attacks on Sikhs began after Sept. 11, 2001, and he hoped to improve tolerance and understanding among Queens' many cultures and faiths.
“Everybody understands that this country is ours as much as anybody else's. The freedom to worship as you want is why we're here,” he said. “New York should be the last city in the world where these things happen.”
State Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing) noted that Friday's swastika incident occurred around the corner from where more than a dozen cars and two bus shelters near the Electchester Jewish Center on 164th Street were inked with swastikas in 2005.
James Connolly and Anthony Larosa, both of Flushing, were charged with criminal mischief as a hate crime. Connolly was sentenced in 2007 to five years of probation, and the case against Larosa was dismissed.
“Hate crimes need to be dealt with swiftly and decisively,” she said. “These crimes are not just against the communities they target, but against us all.”
The San Lorenzo Ruiz Center is still waiting and hoping for the return of its spiritual leader's statue. No updates were available on the case, which was being investigated as a hate crime.
