Refusing to allow a Sikh migrant to carry a kirpan in public, the Italian Supreme Court on Monday said that the migrants in the Western world must conform to the values of the society they have chosen to settle in.
According to the Italian news agency ANSA, the Sikh Indian migrant wanted to carry a kirpan, a dagger considered sacred in Sikhism but it was not permissible under the Italian law.
The court said migrants who choose to live in the Western world have an obligation to conform to the values of the society they have chosen to settle in, even if its values differ from their own.
“An attachment to one’s own values, even if they are lawful in the country of origin, is intolerable when it causes violating the laws of the host country,” the court said.
“The multi ethnic society is a necessity, but it can’t lead to the formation of conflicting cultural groups of islands according to the ethnicities they’re made up of, precluding the unity of the cultural and judicial fabric of our country, which identifies public safety as an asset to defend and as such bans carrying weapons and objects aimed at injury,” the court said.
The Sikh man, who has not been named, was appealing against another court’s decision ordering him to pay a 2,000 euros in fine because he had been caught leaving his home in Goito, northern Italy, armed with a knife measuring nearly 20 cm, BBC reported, citing local media.
(With PTI inputs)
