(Ottawa) Former Minister of National Defense Harjit Sajjan denies having ordered the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to prioritize evacuating Afghans of the Sikh faith during the fall of Kabul in August 2021. He claims to have been a strap transmission, not a source of pressure.

The Globe and Mail reported Thursday that the minister personally intervened to remove a group of 225 people from the religious minority from the country at the expense of Canadian citizens or Afghans with ties to Canada.

According to confidential Canadian military sources who were on the ground during the last evacuation flights, Afghans of the Sikh faith were not considered a priority, given their lack of ties with Canada, according to the publication.

“I did not order the Canadian Armed Forces to give priority to Sikhs,” Minister Sajjan said in a statement first sent to the Globe and Mail, which his office then shared with other media.

The man who was deployed to Afghanistan three times during his time in the FAC explains having relayed to the chain of command information about a group of some 225 Afghans of the Sikh faith who had taken refuge in a temple (gurdwara). from Kabul.

But “I did not order the FAC to undertake a rescue mission in a gurdwara or elsewhere,” assured Minister Sajjan. “My message to the NGO was the same as that which the FAC transmitted directly to the Afghan Sikhs through their own channels: advance towards the airport,” he continued.

He even went so far as to accuse the publication of drawing conclusions based on racial bias.

The World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO) sided with Harjit Sajjan’s interpretation, arguing that in addition to being “unfounded”, the “allegations” appeared “influenced by prejudice against his Sikh identity “.

In a statement sent Thursday, the Department of National Defense argued that all evacuation operations had been carried out “in accordance with the directives of the Government of Canada and the Minister of National Defense.”

The orders “came from the Chief of Staff and his operational level commanders,” and the decisions were made taking into account “the risks associated with the execution of these operations,” the ministry added in the same email .

The Sikhs in question could not be extirpated from Afghanistan in August 2021, as the Taliban regime regained control. However, they managed to escape on board planes chartered by other governments, including that of India, several months later.

Sikhs are a very small religious minority in Afghanistan, a predominantly Muslim country where they face discrimination. In March 2020, a targeted attack by Daesh (Islamic State armed group) in a gurdwara in Kabul left at least 25 victims.

After the attack, “about 200 members of the Sikh community left the country for India, saying they left due to lack of security and insufficient government protection,” according to a Department of Defense report. American state.

The seriousness of the situation prompted elected officials to write to the federal Minister of Immigration at the time, Marco Mendicino, to urge him to create a special program to relocate Sikhs and Hindus to Canada.

The missive was signed by Conservative, New Democrat and Green MPs. The former Conservative Minister of National Defense, Peter MacKay, also initialed it.

This is not the first time that Harjit Sajjan, who was demoted to International Development after the 2021 election, and now holds the Civil Protection portfolio, has found himself in trouble.

In 2017, he had to apologize after presenting himself as the architect of Operation Medusa. This, which took place in September 2006, was the largest Canadian combat operation since the Korean War.

The minister also came under criticism from opposition parties for having demanded – and obtained – the right not to be subject to security measures in Canadian airports before boarding a plane.

He had complained to some of his Cabinet colleagues that he sometimes received secondary searches of his turban after the alarm went off when he passed through passenger screening points before they entered the secure area of ​​the airport. ‘airport.