RIGHTS-U.S.: Anti-Muslim Incidents Up Three-Fold – Report

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 30 2002 (IPS) - Anti-Muslim incidents reported to a major U.S. Islamic advocacy group rose sharply last year, particularly after the September’s terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, said a report released here Tuesday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), in its latest annual report, entitled “Stereotypes and Civil Liberties”, said the great majority of violent incidents, including several murders and scores of assaults, against Muslims took place in the immediate aftermath of the Sep. 11 attacks.

Washington-based CAIR received a total 1,516 complaints from community members between March 2001 and March 2002, — a three-fold increase over the previous year. Excluding the post-Sep. 11 backlash, the number of valid complaints was still up by almost 50 percent.

Complaints included loss or denial of jobs due to religious appearance; refusal to accommodate religious practices in the workplace, schools, or prisons; singling out of individuals at airports because of their names or appearance; detention or interrogation of Muslims by federal or local authorities based on profiling criteria; and denial of access to restaurants or hotels due to religious or ethnic identity.

CAIR said almost 60,000 Muslims in the United States have been negatively affected by government policies adopted after Sep. 11, including some 1,200 Muslims detained nationwide, mostly on immigration charges; 5,000 legal visa-holders asked to submit to interrogations by federal officials; and an estimated 50,000 individuals who donated to Muslim relief organisations subsequently shut down by the government.

“There is a growing sense of apprehension in the Islamic community about what are viewed as unconstitutional policies targeting ordinary Muslims,” said CAIR Research Director Mohamed Nimer. “American Muslims have been thrust to the forefront of the civil rights movement in this country.”

At the same time, the group said it has been gratified by the judiciary’s actions to protect Muslims in the United States.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Detroit ruled unconstitutional the Justice Department’s post-Sep. 11 policy of authorising closed immigration hearings for security reasons. While on appeal, the ruling has forced the Department to end the practice.

In another case involving the murder of a South Asian man in Texas after Sep. 11, a jury took less than an hour to convict the defendant.

And in New York Tuesday, a federal judge dismissed a perjury indictment against a Jordanian student who was being held as a material witness for a grand-jury investigation of the Sep. 11 hijackers. Analysts said her finding, if confirmed, could free dozens of others.

“Now is the time for the judiciary to step in and reaffirm the constitutionally protected rights that all Americans hold dear,” said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.

The 54-page report nonetheless paints a grim picture of the troubles faced by Muslims in the United States after Sep. 11. “Muslims in the United States are more apprehensive than ever about discrimination and intolerance,” the group said.

In the immediate aftermath of the Sep. 11 attacks, CAIR confirmed 303 acts of violence against individuals perceived to be Muslim or Arab. That compared with only 13 violent acts following the Apr. 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which led to speculation by U.S. media — proven incorrect several days later — that Muslim terrorists were behind it.

Muslims reported receiving almost 700 hate messages or similar forms of harassment and another 224 false arrests or intimidation by local or federal authorities after Sep. 11, compared to 149 and 4, respectively, after the Oklahoma City attacks.

The report commended President George W. Bush for repeatedly calling for tolerance of Muslims after the attack, it assailed a number of right-wing public figures for inciting anti-Muslim sentiment, including televangelist Pat Robertson who accused them of wanting to “coexist until they can control, dominate, and then if need be destroy.”

“Such hateful rhetoric has gone largely unchallenged by other religious leaders and top government officials,” according to the report.

That failure translated as well into government policies after Sep. 11, it said, citing the USA Patriot Act of 2001, hurriedly moved through Congress with little public debate. Among other things, the law provided unprecedented wire-tapping authority for federal investigators. Court challenges of key provisions of the Act are expected.

In addition, passenger profiling, already a major concern of Arab-Americans before Sep. 11, has increased sharply since the attacks. “Persons with Muslim or Arab appearance were not just pulled out of passenger lines; they were rudely treated,” according to the report.

U.S. officials also conducted major sweeps of non-U.S. citizens from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, as many as 1,700 of who were taken into custody and held virtually incommunicado in the weeks after Sep. 11. Several hundred have been released; many were never informed of the reasons for their detention or given prompt access to lawyers, according to the report.

Many other legal immigrants were subject to interrogations, often in their homes and places of work. In one case, two children, British citizens of Pakistani descent, were taken by local police officers from their school in Virginia to be interrogated by the FBI. Their ages were 11 and 13.

Beginning in November, the FBI conducted another series of voluntary interviews with 5,000 legal Muslim foreign nationals from specific countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Algeria. Only 20 of them were arrested — all on charges that had nothing to do with terrorism.