RELIGION-RIGHTS: UN Report Shows Mixed Picture on US Muslims

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 1999 (IPS) - The Muslim community in the United States enjoys considerable religious freedom and social acceptance but suffers from “Islamophobia” perpetuated by the media and some government policies, says a United Nations survey.

In a review of religious freedom in the United States, prepared for the UN Commission on Human Rights and made public Wednesday, special rapporteur Abdelfattah Amor says that the country’s more than five million Muslims have enjoyed a considerable degree of religious acceptance.

“Most of the Muslim representatives stressed that their community’s situation in the religious sphere was satisfactory compared with that of Muslim minorities in other countries, and even with the position of Muslims living in countries where Islam was the majority religion,” the report says.

Amor notes that 1,250 Muslim centres and mosques have been built in the United States, about half of which have been constructed in the past 15 years. Muslim groups also report the existence of about 1,000 weekend schools and 1,200 community organisations nationwide.

Despite such progress the report says that Muslim groups “felt there was both latently and openly a form of Islamophobia and racial and religious intolerance in American society”.

Such hostility, the report claims, often involves the “stereotyped and distorted” portrayal of Islam in the mass media, particularly during incidents like the 1990 Gulf War against Iraq and the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.

“The result is that most Americans not only are kept in a state of basic ignorance about Islam and Muslims but are also insidiously and involuntarily are conditioned by the media through negative representations of this community,” the report argues.

Some Muslim anti-discrimination groups contend that the entertainment media, rather than news media, have been the worst offenders.

“In recent years, we’ve seen a shift toward sensitivity in the (news) media,” says Ibrahim Hooper, communications director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “I think the real source (of stereotypes) now is the entertainment industry.”

Almost every year, Hooper adds, negative portrayals of Muslims as terrorists form the basis for the plots of Hollywood hits like ‘The Siege’, ‘Executive Decision’ and ‘True Lies’. Added to that, he argues, is “a lot of stereotyping” from evangelical Christian groups, which he contends could help spark real discrimination.

Although there are few reliable nationwide indicators of anti- Muslim sentiment, the UN report suggests a large number of incidents of intolerance may occur regularly.

Amor cites recent statistics by the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee (ADC), a Washington-based group, which detailed 22 instances of hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs, 55 cases of workplace discrimination and 22 cases of discrimination by government agencies during 1996-97.

Such cases, the report notes, “are merely a sample…and do not reflect the actual number of complaints received”.

Some government policy has also been worrying, according to the report. In particular, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, passed in 1996, has allowed non-citizens to be deported on suspicion of links to terrorist organisations and allows the use of secret evidence in judicial deportation proceedings, the report notes.

Hussein Ibish, media director for the ADC, argues that there are currently 25 immigrants being detained indefinitely on the basis of such secret evidence – all of whom, he adds, are Muslim men from the Arab world. “I think that’s a clear expression of US foreign policy,” he argues.

According to Ibish, the US government has “quite a poor record” on relations with Muslims, shown most clearly in such foreign-policy decisions as the US bombing last December of Iraq just before Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting; missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan last year; and the continuing US support of international sanctions against Iraq.

“This is not respectful, and this is not going to create better relations with the Muslim world,” Ibish says of US foreign policy.

The UN report credits the White House with taking some steps to enhance the status of American Muslims. President Bill Clinton recently initiated the practise of issuing greetings at the beginning of Ramadan and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton invited Muslims to the White House for an ‘iftar’ dinner commemorating the end of a fast. Amor cites such “gestures of recognition” as positive steps for US Muslims.

“I think the administration’s line domestically on Islam is quite good,” Hooper says, particularly the first lady’s comments on respect for Islam. But he adds, “Its foreign policy is a different question.”

“I would say the gestures are half-hearted, and they’re intended to offset the impression that the foreign policy creates,” Ibish says.

He notes that in many recent cases – such as the Supreme Court’s decision last month in the ‘ADC v. Reno’ case which upheld the deportation of seven Palestinians and one Kenyan affiliated with a leftist Palestinian group – the rights of some Muslims to express their political views has been restricted.

“What (the ruling) says to immigrants is, ‘Don’t express your political rights in this country’,” Ibish declares.