US Muslims live in fear amid 9/11 anger
US Muslims were quick to condemn terrorism and to join the national mourning for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But they also feared becoming targets of hate crimes in a backlash of anger, with the attacks blamed on Islamic extremists.
In this story written in the days following 9/11, AFP correspondent Jacques Charmelot looked at the mood amongst American Muslims.
NEW YORK, September 18, 2001 (AFP) - US Muslims said Tuesday they were living in fear as a spate of attacks on foreign-born Americans threatens to tear apart the ethnically diverse fabric of the nation.
The cry went out following three deaths in a nationwide rash of attacks on people of Middle Eastern appearance, amid mounting rage over last week's worst terror attack in US history (...).
"I am afraid, we are all afraid," said Mohamed Khan, a Pakistani who was beaten up in New York's Queen's district, a few miles from where two hijacked passenger jets ploughed into the World Trade Center, felling the city's tallest buildings and changing America forever.
"I was attacked yesterday in Flatbush ... it was a group of young men ... they yelled at me ... they hit me," the 48-year-old interpreter said.
"I am afraid for my daughters, who go to school here ... they were born here ... now after the attacks many look at us with suspicion ... with hate," said the turbanned and bearded resident of the world's ultimate multi-cultural city.
Muslims, and especially Arab-Americans, are hunkering down amid a backlash to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon which the US administration blames on followers of Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden.
Washington's Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has recorded more than 350 incidents of anti-Muslim harassment, threats, discrimination and violence since the tragedy.
- Racist attacks -
Saturday's murder of an Egyptian-born grocer in the Los Angeles suburb of San Gabriel was the latest in the series of racially motivated attacks that prompted President George W. Bush to issue a stern denunciation of hate crimes.
The killing of Karas, a Coptic Christian, brings to 41 the number of attacks on Arab-American citizens and institutions investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the wake of the September 11 terror operation.
"Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America," President Bush said at an Islamic centre in Washington on Monday.
"They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed," he said.
In addition to Karas, a 49-year-old Sikh gas station owner was killed in Mesa, Arizona; a Dallas, Texas-area Pakistani Muslim merchant suffered the same fate. In Ohio, a mosque was badly damaged after a car slammed into a wall.
"I want to make it very clear: vigilante attacks and threats against Arab-Americans will not be tolerated," FBI director Robert Mueller vowed Monday.
But despite the warnings, anti-Muslim and Arab sentiment is rampant, so much so that trials of Arab defendants are being postponed for fear that jurors will be negatively influenced by the defendants' origins.
- Revenge -
Anissa Bouziane, a film-maker of Moroccan descent who lives in New York, said some frustrated people were picking on fellow citizens because they had no clear target towards which to direct their anger and desire for revenge following the terror strikes.
"There is so much ignorance in this country," she said. "They're dealing with an invisible enemy."
Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said the attacks were individual expressions of rage and frustration following the devastating terrorist strikes.
"These acts are spontaneous, sporadic, isolated; they come from lone individuals who demonstrate irrational behaviour; those are small groups of Americans who do not know how to manage their anger," he told AFP.
"Draconian measures will be necessary to prevent Arabs being killed in the streets if the Bush administration goes ahead with the projects that they are talking about," he warned.
Washington has vowed retaliation for the attacks on New York and Washington, which involved hijacking civilian airliners and turning them into flying bombs, and is gearing up for a war against the terrorists.
Bin Laden, who has denied any responsibility for the murderous campaign, is thought to be sheltering in Afghanistan, which is bracing for a possible US assault.