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May 11, 2005
Anti-Muslim hate crimes in US jumps 52 percent
AMP Report: Anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States increased by more than 50 percent in the past year, from 93 cases in 2003 to 141 in 2004, according to a report released on May 11 2005 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR), a prominent American Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.
The CAIR report - the only annual study of its kind - outlines 1522 incidents and experiences of anti-Muslim violence, discrimination and harassment in 2004, the highest number of Muslim civil rights cases ever recorded in the group's annual report entitled: 'Unequal Protection: The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States 2005'.
Among the most prevalent complaints: There were 225 alleging religious discrimination such as community opposition to the presence of a mosque; 196 asserting employment discrimination; and 190 reported instances of verbal harassment.
Anti-Muslim Internet traffic and radio broadcasts are fueling an atmosphere of hate and contributing to increased discrimination, the report pointed out.
Factors contributing to the sharp increase
CAIR said factors contributing to the sharp increase in reported incidents included the lingering impact of post-9/11 fears, a general increase in anti-Muslim rhetoric and abuses associated with the implementation of national security policies.
“Since the 9-11 attacks, the most disturbing legal trend is the growing disparity in how American Muslims are being treated under the law on many different levels,” the report states.
The number of incidents reportedly involving some form of police or law-enforcement abuse, such as unreasonable arrests, detentions and searches, rose sharply in 2004, constituting more than one-fourth of all cases of abuse or discrimination, according to the report. Such cases constituted only seven percent of reported incidents in 2003, according CAIR, which stressed that its report could not be considered scientific because it relied on voluntary reporting by alleged victims or witnesses.
Ten states accounted for almost 79 percent of all incidents reported to CAIR in 2004 are: California (20 percent), New York (10 percent), Arizona (9 percent), Virginia (7 percent), Texas (7 percent), Florida (7 percent), Ohio (5 percent), Maryland (5 percent), New Jersey (5 percent), and Illinois (3 percent).
The report shows that Texas is ranked fifth among the 10 states where the majority of civil rights cases have been reported in the country. “Texas has been one of the hot beds for hate crime violence,” said Arsalan T. Iftikhar, the national legal director of CAIR in Washington and the author of the report.
The number of violent hate crimes, such as the incident in San Antonio where a man pleaded no contest to setting fires at three convenience stores owned by Muslims in 2003 and 2004, has also risen.
Thomas C. Carroll, a resident of a North Side subdivision, was sentenced by Judge Philip Kazen Jr. to serve three concurrent 30-year sentences for the fires –- a move CAIR commended. “I think (District Attorney) Susan Reed was an excellent example of how to handle a hate crime,” said Iftikhar, who was happy to see that Reed called Carroll a “terrorist.”
Hate crime incidents
The hate crime incidents ranged from physical violence to harassment cases, such as the one in California, where a woman wearing a hijab was pushing a stroller with her baby on a sidewalk and man in a truck almost ran over them.
When the woman said, “You almost killed me and my baby!” the man replied, “It wouldn’t have been a big loss.”
Incidents also included mosque vandalisms and attacks on Muslin-owned businesses. In New Jersey, cases included a mosque site under construction in Toms River that was vandalized and defaced with Nazi graffiti, and the throwing of beer and liquor bottles at a Union City mosque while congregants were inside mourning an Arab-American teenager who had been killed in a car crash.
By far the greatest increase over last year, in both real and proportional terms, occurred in the areas of unreasonable arrests, detentions, searches/seizures, and interrogations. In 2003, complaints concerning law enforcement agencies accounted for only seven percent of all reported incidents. In 2004, however, these reports rose to almost 26 percent of all cases.
"These disturbing figures come as no surprise given growing Islamophobic sentiments and a general misperception of Islam and Muslims," said CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar, the report's author.
In the report, Iftikhar points to several factors as to the spike in incidents, including the “ongoing and lingering atmosphere of fear since the September 11 attacks against American Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.” “And the growing Arab/Muslim sentiment is being perpetuated with the news of the war in Iraq,” Iftikhar said. “Citizens of this country are being targeted for their religion and their race.” No minority group, he continued, should be targeted solely for the fact that they are different from the rest of the American population.
"We call on President Bush, whose statements after the 9/11 attacks were so important in helping to protect the well-being of the American Muslim community, to once again speak out against Islamophobic attitudes," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. Awad also called on Congress to hold hearings on the findings of CAIR's report.
Notable bias or discrimination cases cited in a council report include the barring of singer Cat Stevans, now known as Yusuf Islam, and Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States.
Captain James Yee
Among the most egregious examples of Islamophobia -- and the government's own fueling of anti-Muslim sentiment -- since the post-9/11 roundups, according to the report, was the case of James Yee, an Army captain who converted to Islam in 1990.
Yee was arrested in 2003 and held in solitary confinement for nearly three months on suspicion that he had spied for al Qaeda or some other group while serving as a chaplain for prisoners held by the U.S. at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Despite pre-trial hype, Yee was initially charged only with wrongfully transporting classified material, charges that were subsequently changed to adultery and storing pornography on a government-issued computer. In April, 2004, all charges and reprimands issued in the case were dropped, and Yee finally returned as an Army chaplain to his home base at Fort Lewis, Washington. There, in the absence of a government apology for his treatment, he tendered his resignation from the Army.
A second notorious case cited by CAIR involved another Muslim convert, Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, who was arrested by the FBI as a ”material witness” in the case of the March 11, 2004, train bombings in Madrid, Spain, based on the Bureau's apparent misidentification of a fingerprint.
Mayfield, who had never even traveled to Spain, was detained for two weeks while newspapers and electronic media ran hundreds of stories labeling him a ”terrorist.” He was finally released at the end of March with an FBI apology.
The report did contain some good news for American Muslims. Workplace discrimination complaints accounted for 23 percent of all complaints in 2003, but fell to less than 18 percent last year. Complaints involving government agencies fell from 29 percent in 2003 to 19 percent last year.
Yaser El-Menshawy, chairman of the Majlis Ash-Shura of New Jersey, the state's council of mosques, said he and others thought the number of anti-Muslim incidents shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon reached a peak that would not be repeated. "I thought we were through with the high point after 9/11," he said. "My gut feeling is it may be a combination of the war in Iraq and mounting casualties, and that we're getting better at collecting this kind of data."
CAIR began documenting anti-Muslim incidents following the 1995 attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The council is America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, with 31 regional offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada.
The Epoch Times - May 16, 2005
Report details rising law enforcement
discrimination against Muslims
By Gary Feuerberg
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Islamic civil liberties group in the US, released a report on Wednesday detailing a sharp increase in law enforcement discrimination against American Muslims in 2004.
The report, called “Unequal Protection,” compiled and tabulated complaints by year, type of offense, and place of occurrence. In addition to the statistical evidence, the report discusses the role of former Attorney General John Ashcroft after the 9/11 attacks in enforcing the Patriot Act, especially the mass round-ups of Muslim and Arab men.
CAIR tracks Muslim civil rights violations in its 31 regional offices nationwide and in Canada. The group released the report in a news conference at the National Press Club.
CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar, who authored the report, said, “By far the greatest increase over last year, in both real and proportional terms, occurred in the areas of unreasonable arrests, detentions, searches/seizures, and interrogations. In 2003, complaints concerning law enforcement agencies accounted for only seven percent of all reported incidents. In 2004, however, these reports rose to almost 26 percent of all cases.”
Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director of CAIR, explained the reason for this change as probably due to the increase of “Islamophobia,” as he called it. The latter is encouraged by the growing use of anti-Muslim rhetoric by some “local and national opinion leaders,” and unwise federal legislation and policy which infringe on civil rights and continue to be passed.
“We call on President Bush, whose statements after the 9/11 attacks were so important in helping to protect the well-being of the American Muslim community, to once again speak out against Islamophobic attitudes,” said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, who called on Congress to hold hearings on the findings of CAIR's report.
The main conclusions of the report were that in 2004 the reported cases to CAIR of harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment increased nearly 50% from 2003 to1,522 incidents. Also disturbing was the finding that incidents of anti-Muslim physical violence had grown by 52%, from 93 in 2003 to 141 in 2004. Why the big spike of 1,522 cases?
Also, why don’t the results agree with a recent FBI report? These questions were raised at the news conference. Hooper explained that it was like comparing apples and oranges. The FBI report was limited to hate crimes whereas CAIR’s includes a wide assortment of classes of crimes such as Arab men and women being subjected to harassment, or having a license to build a mosque in Atlanta rejected because of the fear of terrorism. Hooper also noted that increases in the number of reports at the local Muslim community level are more likely to be reported to CAIR due to their new regional offices.
The report describes the “dragnets” conducted by the Justice Department two months after 9/11 where at least 1,200 men from predominantly Muslim and Arab countries were detained for long periods by law enforcement officials without charge, denied access to bond release and sometimes legal counsel, and placed in harsh conditions of confinement. The report also mentioned the ‘voluntary’ interviews conducted by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies following 9/11 and again in March 2002 under the direction of the Justice Department. The agencies forced thousands of Muslim and Arab young men who were “lawfully residing in the US” to submit to questioning during these times.
Even more intimidating was the institution of the National Security Entry Exit Registration System (SNEERS) which requires all male nationals (over 14 years of age) to register with the government and submit to fingerprinting. The countries on the special registration bulletins are all Muslin or Arab, with the exception of North Korea. Many of those who registered were afterwards arrested and/or placed into deportation hearings. Of the deportations, “not a single one of the individuals was ever charged with a terrorism crime,” according to the report.
The report also described incidents occurring on a local level. On April 6, 2004, a Muslim woman working in Maryland was fired for wearing hijab, the clothing that Muslim women wear in public. In another incident in Texas, Muslim children saw two white males place a homemade bomb outside of a local mosque just before it exploded. And mall security guards in New York City called for police in July 2004 because a group of Muslims were performing their daily prayers in the parking lot.
Three states, California, New York, and Arizona accounted for 40% of all incidents reported to CAIR in 2004. The next three, Virginia, Texas and Florida, accounted for another 20% of reported incidents.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-5-16/28775.html
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