Legality of Knives !

 This week a fight in a high school play area turned ugly when a fourteen year old boy being bullied pulled out a knife and stabbed his sixteen year old aggressor.  We have very strict laws in Australia and it is a criminal offence to be found to be carrying a knife in public.

The boy with the knife was from a Sikh background and what is known as a "Kirpan " is a required as part of the Hindoo religion required of Sikhs.  They are required to wear a turban, not cut their hair or beard and carry this ceremonial knife for their own defence or to aid those in peril.

This Kirpan is about four centimetres long and is contained in a sheath and it seems that it has been tolerated in the NSW school system. Australia's laws allow citizens to choose and follow the religion of their choice and usually allows whatever customs apply to the religion chosen.

 That tolerance is treated differently in other parts of the world.   In Britain it is permitted provided the knife is enclosed in a sheath from which it is difficult to withdraw and  the Canadian Supreme court recently ruled that it was reasonable to ban Kirpans in schools.

This raises the issue of when religious practice should be applied to children.  Islam requires women to cover their hair, but this is not required of girls until they reach puberty.  Newsreels from  strictly religious Afghanistan show young girls at school with their hair uncovered, but the custom changes from country to country.

Not all religious practices would be tolerated in Australia.  What was called " Suttee " was common in India until the British banned it in 1829. Women were coerced - and sometimes forced - to jump onto their husbands funeral pyre as a mark of respect, and often very old men had very young brides.  That practice still exists in some remote parts of the world.

Unfortunately, knife crime is becoming rampant in Australia.  Settling arguments with a fist fight was common in yesteryear but today many young men carry a knife when they gather socially and the paramedics are often having to deal with stab wounds.

The police are permitted to detain and pat down suspicious characters they think may be carrying a knife and that is a criminal offence when they face a magistrate.  It is obvious that now this Kirpan issue has been drawn to media attention that some people caught with illegal knives will claim to be of the Sikh religion and the knife is part of their religious duty.

Hopefully, common sense will prevail and carrying a Kirpan will apply to adult Sikhs and not be tolerated in boys of school age.  Magistrates also need the power to demand proof that a person appearing on a knife charge and pleading religious exemption is legitimately a practising member of that religion.

Religious tolerance does have its limits !