Although President Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft and other government officials have urged Americans not to take vengeance into their own hands, and have specifically asked people not to blame or target individual Muslims for what happened on September 11, disturbing reports keep reaching the Zundelsite of hate crimes, including murder, against Arab-Americans - just for their looks and ethnicity.
There is an ugly mood out there in some quarters. Please ask all your friends and neighbors, whatever their race, nationality or religion, to follow President Bush's lead. Let no one feed the fires of bigotry with loose, unsubstantiated accusations of collective Arab guilt or responsibility.
We Germans can certainly identify with what it feels like to be under constant, unrelenting accusation spanning now more than half a century for something that WE didn't do.
Here is a fairly recent ADC Press Release: Anti-Arab Hate Crimes, Discrimination Continue - Killing in Detroit, Passengers Expelled from Airplanes
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Washington, DC, Sept 21- A number of troubling new instances of hate crimes and discrimination against Arab Americans and Muslims, or those perceived to be, unfolded across the country today. In seven separate instances in cities including Tampa, Orlando, Minneapolis, and San Antonio, pilots or passengers caused Arab American or Muslim passengers, who had passed through rigorous security checks and been seated, to be expelled from the aircraft simply on the grounds of their apparent ethnicity. And an Arab American was killed in Michigan in an apparent act of vengeance for the Sept. 11 attacks.
In one instance, three Arab American men were expelled from Northwest flight 673 from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City at the insistence of other passengers, because of their ethnicity. When the other passengers refused to fly if the three remained on board, Northwest expelled the Arab Americans from the plane. A Northwest spokesman has been quoted as saying, "Under FAA security rules, the airline has no choice but to re-accommodate a passenger or passengers if their actions or presence make a majority of passengers uncomfortable and threaten to disrupt normal operations of flight.=94 In other cases, such as that in Orlando, where two businessmen from Pakistan were expelled from a flight they had boarded, it was the pilots who insisted on passengers' expulsion due to perceived ethnicity.
ADC appealed to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Justice Department to promptly issue guidelines clarifying that neither pilots' authority nor passenger sentiments could be grounds for excluding passengers simply on the basis of ethnicity or religion. ADC President Ziad Asali said =93when the FAA regulations were promulgated they were not intended as a vehicle for the arbitrary exclusion of passengers due to race, ethnicity or religion. Clearly it is unacceptable that passengers are expelled from aircraft because someone, even the pilot, just doesn't like the way they look. The FAA needs to clarify its rules regarding the expulsion of passengers based on perceived ethnicity.=94
Elsewhere, what is at least the third hate crime murder since Sept. 11 occurred in Lincoln Park, Michigan, just outside Detroit. The victim, a 45 year old US citizen originally from Yemen, was shot 12 times in the back by his girlfriend's former lover. According to the suspect's own police confession and the girlfriend's statements, as the two were sleeping, her former boyfriend broke in and dragged the Arab American out of bed, saying "I'm going to kill you for what happened in New York and DC." The victim ran outside and was killed. The attacker is in custody and has made a full confession. ADC has received assurances >from the FBI and Justice Department that anti-Arab hate crimes will be vigorously investigated.
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
4201 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20008, U.S.A.
Tel: (202) 244-2990, Fax: (202) 244-3196
E-mail: adc@adc.org
Web : http://www.adc.org
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Thought for the Day:
"During WWII my mother had to accompany (relatives on our street to the) doctor and shopping as they spoke with a German accent. They were afraid to talk as they were insulted and assaulted as a result of the fires of anti-German sentiment created by our government with knowingly false atrocity stories."
(Letter to the Zundelsite)