RIGHTS: U.S. Must Fight ‘Islamaphobia’, Says U.N. Official

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 29 2003 (IPS) - The United States needs to ”confront” the spread of ”Islamaphobia and Arabophobia”, a senior U.N. human rights official warned Monday.

”Incidents of religious intolerance continued to occur in the United States, and (these) incidents may have been encouraged, in particular by statements from public figures and by a certain media bias,” Abdelfattah Amor, the special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, said in a report released here.

The number of attacks against Muslims and Arabs rose sharply following the terrorist attacks against the United States on Sep. 11, 2001, which were carried out by Middle Eastern Arabs.

In his annual report, which will go before the current session of the U.N. General Assembly, Amor singles out two statements made by ”public figures” that raised the level of anti-Islamic rhetoric in the United States.

In August last year, the evangelist Franklin Graham said on television that Islam ”is a very evil and wicked religion”.

And in November 2001, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said on radio that ”Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you.”

”The media continue to promote an often incorrect, negative image of certain religious groups and have sometimes incited hatred of many such groups, including Muslims,” the report said.

Immediately after the attacks, syndicated columnist Anne Coulter wrote in the right-wing publication ‘National Review’ that the United States should declare open war against Muslims.

”We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity,” she wrote.

A statement by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson also drew sharp criticism last year from Arab-Americans in the United States.

Robertson said that Islam ”is not a peaceful religion that wants to co-exist. They want to co-exist until they can control, dominate and then, if need be, destroy.”

The statement got heavy play on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, which is relayed nation-wide.

In his report to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Amor singles out several cases of hate crimes where Muslims, Arabs and Indians (mistaken for Arabs) were severely beaten by gangs or individuals spewing anti-Arab or anti-Islam slogans.

For example, in August last year authorities foiled a plot to blow up 50 mosques and Islamic cultural centres in the southern state of Florida. And in March 2002, two shots were fired at a large mosque in Chicago where about 100 people were worshipping.

More recently, in February this year a Muslim man in the state of New Jersey was allegedly attacked by two men who accused him of being a ”terrorist”.

And in the same month, a young Lebanese-American, Rashid Alam of California, was reportedly beaten by a gang of about 20 youths shouting anti-Arab slogans.

The Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee says that the anti-Islam and anti-Arab rhetoric ”is exactly the same as traditional anti-Semitism”.

Committee Spokesman Hussein Ibish was quoted as saying that Graham’s remark about Islam being a ”wicked religion” is a ”slightly warmed-over version of the hatred that led to the Holocaust”.

In his report, Amor also cites several examples of hate crimes in countries ranging from Afghanistan and China to India and Pakistan.

Police in India last year reportedly prevented the mass conversion to Buddhism and Christianity of about 10,000 ”untouchables” (Dalits) in the town of Chennai.

”It was alleged that all roads leading to the town had been blocked and the police had stopped 60 trucks in which the Dalits were travelling,” the report added.

Also in India, an American missionary of the New Jerusalem Church was reportedly stabbed and seven other Christians were attacked by a dozen militants suspected of being members of a Hindu group, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

In the case of Pakistan, Amor said he is ”concerned at the worsening relations between religious communities and at the number of acts of violence committed in the name of religion”.

The study also criticised China for the persecution of members of the Falun Gong sect, some of who were tortured or had died while in detention.

In many cases in 2002, Amor said, rather than protecting the right to freedom of religion or belief, member states have used the pretext of security in response to terrorist threats to limit the exercise of that right.

”This general trend has also highlighted the fact that states have focused on restricting civil and political rights at the expense of economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to education, which is essential for teaching a culture of tolerance and non-discrimination and is part of an overall prevention policy,” he concludes.