It's been seven years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and many young American Muslims are convinced that much of American society views them with growing hostility. They're right.

A 2007 Zogby poll discovered that 76 percent of young ArabAmericans report experiencing discrimination. A CNN poll from the same year found that 53 percent of Americans believe conflict between Islam and Christianity is "inevitable," up from 45 percent in 2003.

These hardening attitudes affect the job opportunities of American Muslims. One study from 2004 sent out 6,000 fictitious resumes — all similarly qualified but with different, ethnically identifiable names — to employers across California. If your name was Heidi Mackenzie, you had the best chance of being called back. And the worst name to have? Abdul-Aziz Mansour.

It's not surprising, then, that earnings of Arab and Muslim men have declined relative to the general population since 2001.

And profiling continues to be a problem. The Justice Department is seeking to enshrine its practice in national security investigations, allowing the FBI to invade the privacy of Americans and open cases against people without the benefit of evidence or probable cause. Such a policy would disproportionately affect the Arab and Muslim American communities, but we should all be concerned.

The hostility toward young American Muslims is unwarranted.

Do they seethe with resentment and hatred of the United States? Are they dire threats to our national security? A terrorist recruiter's dream? Not at all. After three years of research on this issue, I can tell you that I heard young American Muslims talk about a great many things, but not once did I hear them express support for Osama bin Laden, wish harm on their fellow Americans or plot the takeover of the United States — all accusations leveled with startling frequency at the American Muslim community.

Young Arab Muslim Americans spend their time and energy worrying about landing a good job, finding a mate and getting married, achieving happiness and fulfilling their potential.

Most are critical of American foreign policy (as are many other Americans). Among the more pious, topics in Islam occupy a good deal of conversation, and these discussions often center on how best to refute the stereotypes and misconceptions people have of their faith.

At the same time we also need to record the victories and successes. In many corners of the country, Islam is increasingly understood as an American religion. Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and Andre Carson, D-Ind. — both Muslim — have been elected to Congress. There is more genuine interest in the Arab world than ever.

The young people I talk to feel this push-and-pull of acceptance and rejection clearly.

Where does that leave us, seven years after Sept. 11? In some ways, we seem to be teetering on the cusp, ready to tilt toward a society that recognizes the bedrock principle of equality for all or one where discrimination is not just tolerated in the workplace but enforced through the law.

Osama bin Laden is responsible for the terrorist attacks, and for that he should be brought to justice. But we are the ones responsible for deciding what kind of nation we want to live in.

That choice is ours. [Link]

As the nation’s primary law enforcement agency, the Justice Department strives to be a model for ensuring that Americans' privacy and civil liberties are forcefully protected in all the Department's counterterrorism and law enforcement efforts. Below are some of the advances made since 9/11:

* Since 9/11, the Department has investigated more than 800 incidents involving violence, threats, vandalism or arson against Arab Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, South Asian Americans or other individuals perceived to be of Middle Eastern origin.
* Federal charges in these investigations have been brought against 42 defendants, with 35 convictions to date. The Department’s Civil Rights Division has coordinated with state and local prosecutors in more than 150 non-federal criminal cases.
* The Department developed and issued guidance to federal agencies in June 2003 expressly prohibiting racial profiling in federal law enforcement practices.
* The Department appointed its first Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer in February 2006. This officer actively participates in Department policymaking, ensuring regard for privacy and civil liberties at the earliest stages of Departmental proposals.
* The Privacy and Civil Liberties Office also participates in public outreach activities and works closely with the Terrorist Screening Center, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security to address watch list redress issues and other matters.
* The FBI created the Office of Integrity and Compliance in 2007 to ensure FBI compliance with laws, rules, and procedures, not only in national security activities, but in all FBI activities.
* The Department’s National Security Division in 2007 launched a comprehensive oversight initiative and created a new oversight office to ensure that FBI national security investigations comply with the nation’s laws, rules, and regulations, including privacy and civil liberties.
* The Department for the first time has begun conducting regular, comprehensive reviews of national security activities at FBI Headquarters and field offices, completing 15 such reviews in 2007. The Department plans to complete another 17 such reviews by the end of 2008.
* The Department implemented dramatic reforms in 2007 and 2008 to address problems in the FBI’s use of National Security Letters; increased the number of FISA accuracy and minimization reviews; and began conducting reviews of all referrals by the FBI to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board to detect patterns that may require changes in policy, training, or oversight. [Link]

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, leaders in New Brunswick, N.J., had an immediate concern: protecting their Muslim neighbors.

The city, a university and healthcare industry hub of 50,000, is on the commuter rail run into New York City, 30 miles away, and Middlesex County, its home, mourned 70 dead residents following 9/11.

Yet when an Episcopal priest warned the local police chief that hotheads might retaliate by attacking an Islamic society property, the chief replied that he had already sent officers to protect against any violence. Up against an environment of fear and grief, when some sought vigilante vengeance, New Brunswick instead rallied to protect its Muslim neighbors....

But [a] book includes the case of the Islamic School of Seattle, whose non-Muslim neighbors patrolled the sidewalks in case vandals attacked the school, and similar examples in other cities.

Elsewhere, when word spread on the Internet that Muslim women in traditional head scarves feared for their safety when they went shopping, neighbors offered to shop for them, according to Niehbuhr. In another example, employers encouraged Islamic employees to report harassment, promising to clamp down on it.

Indeed, interfaith cooperation preceded 9/11. By one estimate, 1,000 interfaith groups have formed since the mid-90s, spurred by growing religious diversity wrought in the country by immigrants from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, said Niebuhr.[Link]

We will have to be unwavering in opposing bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle Eastern descent. [Link]

It's not uncommon to see Harpreet Singh Toor in the middle of community discussions in Richmond Hill. He's one of the visible leaders in the Sikh community and when there's a problem, many people turn to him.

"It could be their kids getting in trouble in school, or parent teacher meeting where the parents cannot communicate they need me to talk to the teacher," said Toor....

Then, after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Toor was able to help many in his community when a number of Sikhs were assaulted after being mistaken for Muslims.

"He helped us go to precinct, go to hospital," said local resident Bhupinder Singh Atwal.

After going to the authorities, Toor then used the media attention to make New Yorkers aware of the Sikh religion.

"Harpreet is very famous and he's an intelligent organizer of our community," said resident Gurmit Singh Sandal.

The organizer says as the community continues to grow, so will his efforts. [Link]

The United States, in the dock at a U.N. forum accused of racial discrimination, said on Thursday it was combating hate crimes such as displays of hangman's nooses as well as police brutality against minorities.

A U.S. delegation defended Washington's record at the start of a two-day debate at the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

The committee's 18 independent experts grilled U.S. officials on issues including racial profiling in the wake of the September 11 attacks, police brutality against minorities, and the high proportion of African-Americans on death row....

Some 47 states have laws against hate crimes, which they actively enforce, according to the U.S. delegation on Thursday.

U.S. officials had investigated more than 800 racially-motivated incidents against people perceived to be Arab, Muslim, Sikh or South Asian since the September 11 attacks.

Despite a drop in the number and seriousness of such crimes, identifying and prosecuting them remained a priority. [Link]

TEENAGE girl led a racist attack by a group of youths against a Sikh man on a bus in Edinburgh.
The 22-year-old man was verbally abused on the Number 26 Lothian bus to Corstorphine at around 10.30pm on Saturday.The man, who was wearing a turban, boarded the bus at Haymarket with a friend. Shortly after, a group of teenagers got on near the Murrayfield Ice Rink and racially abused the victim, partly due to his traditional clothing.The female main suspect got off the bus at the top of Drum Brae Drive, near to the Fox Covert housing estate.She is described as white, 16 to 20, 5ft 8ins, slim, with blonde hair, which was tied up in a ponytail. She was wearing a white jacket and grey jeans.A police spokesman said: "The victim was left extremely upset as a result of this incident, which shows a lack of respect for the victim's faith. "We want anyone who witnessed the incident, or who knows the identity of any of the youths involved, to get in touch."

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburgh/Girl-leads-teen-gang39s-race.3748056.jp

also reported on http://ethnicconfusionbritain.blogware.com/blog

The mother of a 14-year-old Sikh girl is planning a legal challenge after her daughter was excluded from her school for wearing a religious wrist bangle.
Sarika Singh was sent home by the school after she refused to remove her silver Kara bangle as she felt it was “a constant reminder to do good.” Aberdare Girls School in south Wales said it had a clear code of conduct and it had temporarily excluded a pupil for refusing to accept a ruling from the governors.Jane Rosser, the head teacher, said that wearing the Kara was against regulations because it was a piece of jewellery.
The only two forms of jewellery that girls were allowed to wear in school were a wrist watch and one pair of plain metal stud earrings.
However the Sikh girl's supporters claimed the school's decision infringed her human rights.
The girl's mother Sanita Singh, 38, said she was taking legal advice and was considering seeking a judicial review.
She had the support of several local politicians and the Sikh Federation UK, she added.
She said the teenager would remove the bangle for gym classes, or wood and metalwork, for safety reasons.
She added: “It is not jewellery. It is part of our faith and symbol of our belief.”
She added: “We feel very strongly that Sarika has a right to manifest her religion. She is not asking for anything big and flashy, she is not making a big fuss, she just wants a reminder of her religion.”
Her daughter's interest in the Sikh faith intensified after the family visited India, including the Golden Temple in Amritsar, two years ago.
"I don't believe in putting pressure on children to follow a certain religion, but Sarika decided for herself that she wanted to be a practising Sikh,” Mrs Singh, a mother-of-two, added.
Sarika, of Cwmbach, near Aberdare, said: “I am a Sikh and it is very important for me to wear the Kara because it is a symbol of my faith and a constant reminder that I should only do good work, and never do anything bad, with my hands.
“It is a comfort to me and a confidence booster when I am doing my exams. The reason I am fighting for my right to wear the Kara is because I want to stand up for the right of all the other Sikh pupils across the country to wear their Karas in school.The governors rejected the girl's request to wear the bangle after examining the uniform policy and human rights legislation in detail.
The family has been backed by the Valleys Race Equality Council, whose director is the former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies.
He said: “We have arranged for her to see a solicitor and an application will be made to the High Court for a judicial review of the school's decision.
“We believe the school is acting in contravention both of the 1976 Race Relations Act and of human rights legislation.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/07/nbangle107.xml

full article also on http://ethnicconfusionbritain.blogware.com/blog

"A Dream in Doubt" 5 p.m. to­day.

Capri Theatre.

Free.

Documentary about a Sikh man who was killed in Arizona after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Pro­ducers will be on hand to discuss the film from 6-6:30 p.m. [Link]

Yes, the 9/11 attacks were committed by self-proclaimed Muslims. That is not in dispute.

But damning the millions of American Muslims for a crime committed by a few lunatics is morally reprehensible and logically crazed.

All religious and ethnic groups have blood on their hands. Yet many Muslims have been murdered since 9/11 in misguided acts of vengeance.

So have some who merely "looked Muslim," such as a Sikh gas station owner who was killed in Phoenix a few years ago for wearing a turban.

Hate speech - flowing across the airwaves and in far-right wing tracts by the likes of Ann Coulter - have called for revisiting the Japanese internment-camp system, if not worse.

Just recently, a group of imams including Omar Shahin, Tucson's former imam, a tireless worker for peace and a family friend who attended my Bar Mitzvah, were thrown off a plane for praying, as they are required to do five times a day, an act that was somehow interpreted as threatening....

This lack of concern for our neighbors' welfare is tragic in its own right.
But there is also a practical reason we all must stand up to protect the rights of gay and Muslim Americans: It could easily be us next.

Once we establish that denying rights to one group is acceptable, it becomes that much easier to deny them to someone else.

To quote a work from another time when people did not protest as others lost their freedom: " . . . and then they came for me, and by then there was nobody left to stand up." [Link]

America changed forever on September 11, 2001. Six years after the attacks, 9-11 is a demarcation date, one synonymous with December 7, 1941.

It is this generation's Day of Infamy, defined by the images of commercial jets slamming into the twin towers in New York City's financial district. In the initial aftermath of the attacks, as the unthinkable became the undeniable, people looked for an answer to the madness swirling around them. For the briefest of moments, social tensions among city residents dissolved; but these bonds soon gave way to a sense of distrust that continues up to the present.

The subsequent fallout created by 9-11 had immediate and long-term effects on the city and its residents. New York, once considered the nexus point of America's celebrated "Melting Pot," rapidly became a boiling cauldron of hyphenated Americans whose languages, religious beliefs and garb served as focal points of distrust.

Along Woodhaven Boulevard, one of the busiest commercial areas in the borough of Queens, numerous small businesses staffed by "Arab looking" employees shuttered their doors in fear of retaliation. "Real" Americans, with an overdeveloped sense of xenophobia, physically and verbally attacked followers of the Sikh religion, whose male members wear turbans as a sign of their faith. New York City, an urban matrix nuanced by millions of people from every race, ethnic background, political persuasion and religion became a closed society dominated by mistrust. [Link]

On 9/11, hijackers crashed two airliners, the United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11, into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the George W. Bush administration declared a war on terrorism. As the nation began its campaign to punish the people responsible for the estimated 3,000 civilian deaths, the image of Muslim Americans was besmirched.

There have been numerous incidents of harassment and hate crimes reported against Middle Easterners and other Middle Eastern-looking people, particularly Sikhs. This is because Sikh males usually wear turbans, which are often associated with Muslims living in America.

Taji Abdullah became more aware of his identity as both an African American and as a Muslim after the 9/11 terrorists attacks.

"Sometimes you just see people looking at you, your name (if you have an Islamic name), or if you're wearing Islamic clothing," said the 23-year-old CSUN senior who is currently majoring in real estate and business law.

"I have a lot of respect for Muslim women who wear the hijab, covering their hair and dressing modestly, because they are subjected to this everyday," Abdullah said. "Men can mesh into society for the most part unless they have a huge beard."

People are more open-minded in Los Angeles because of the city's rich culture, Abdullah said. But because other people are misinformed about Islam, they believe terrorism is Islam, and this has negative connotations.

Agents from the FBI raided Abdullah's house in 2003. "This was a traumatic event in my life," he said. "I'll always remember that."

FBI agents questioned him and his stepmother, but they were really interested in his father, Abdullah said. His father is a lawyer, part African American, Native American and white, though he has been mistaken to be Arab. And his beard doesn't help stop the racial profiling.

"We believe the beard is mandatory," Abdullah said. "So he's not going to cut it off. He's not going to compromise his religious beliefs."

Detained for a few months, Abdullah's father was placed in San Bernardino, among other places.

It was "very disheartening to see my dad in an orange jumpsuit, seeing my dad go through that," Abdullah said.

Afterwards in the '80s, his father set up a nonprofit organization he called Holy Land Foundation that was suspected of being involved in acts of terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The organization's founders are currently on trial for such charges in Texas.

"Incidents like that take your innocence away," Abdullah said, referring to the FBI raid and his fathers' detainment. "Growing up as an African American, you are already the underdog and at the same time you are Muslim."

This situation brought Abdullah's family closer.

"You may have your parents today, but that doesn't mean that you'll be blessed to tell them you love them tomorrow," Abdullah said.

Some of the people working for the FBI are sympathetic and accommodating, but they need to do their job, Abdullah said They said, "'Sorry, this must be hard for you,' as they were putting him in handcuffs," he said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they were watching me ... my dad. ... my family, or any other Muslim in America," Abdullah said. "I'm American. I can do things with confidence. I'm not afraid to be kicked off. I don't have the insecurity to assimilate into the American culture. I'm not hesitant or insecure about my nationality or ethnicity."

"I'm not doing anything illegal. It's not like I have anything to hide. If I'm comfortable, then I'll do it or wear it," Abdullah said. "It's a free country. I can do what I want, but within American and Islamic contexts."

Since the time of slavery, Abdullah's family has been here.

He's a first generation Muslim, as his father converted from Catholicism to Islam at the age of 25. His mother, however, was a devout Protestant.

Abdullah grew up in two different households when his parents divorced. He was in a Protestant household five days of the week and his mother tried to instill her religious beliefs in him by taking him to church and watching Protestant broadcasts. He visited his father's Muslim household on the weekends, where his father would talk about the fundamentals of Islam.

"It was confusing, but by the time I was 12 or 13, I knew what I wanted to be," Abdullah said. "Islam made more sense to me."

Another CSUN student who experienced firsthand how the world changed after the 9/11 attacks was 22-year-old Syeda Mudassarm, a CSUN junior majoring in economics, who was in Pakistan at the time.

In Pakistan, there's a difference in thinking, culture and religion seen in the region's clothing, and the role of women in society is all more conservative, Mudassarm said.

Mudassarm experienced how Pakistanis were unable to procure their Visas so they could be able travel to the West for the summer and winter holidays. On 9/11, she said she heard that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by religious extremists and that Pakistanis would have no part in it.

"In Iran, women have to cover up. In Pakistan, it's your choice," Mudassarm said. "The fundamentalists want you to cover up head to toe. They were even kidnapping non-Muslims and Chinese in Pakistan."

Mudassarm said, "I was so scared because they said that wearing jeans and shirts is non-Islamic. And if they saw a girl wearing it, they would kill her."

"This was not about Islam. This was about war ... about very scary things," Mudassarm said. "Everyone is supporting the same thing, against terror."

It's not just the West that's threatened, Mudassarm said. The organization called the Ral Masjid is creating problems for Muslims and non-Muslims.

"They're killing their own brothers and sisters," Mudassarm said. "They target young boys and girls. And it's working because the kids believe what they're told and they are from poor areas."

At CSUN, Mudassar lives in the dormitories and said she's never experienced such problems.

"It's very multicultural and they want to know what Islam is about. People accept me as a part of the American society," Mudassar said. "But I know the type of thinking that goes around that ignorant people think. I try to correct it, but there are so many."

"We are all normal people just like any Christian, any Jew, any Catholic," Mudassar said.

Every year after the infamous day in which terrorists attacked brings about memories of what happened when so many Americans were suddenly silenced.

Taiba Kator Mulk, 21, senior biology major at CSUN, said she remembers what her uncle told her on 9/11. "'The American government is going to go after Iraq.' I didn't know what that meant at the time, but now, six years later, I do," she said.

No personal attacks have been experienced by Kator Mulk since 9/11 because she said she knew the people around her very well. But she did hear about Sikh men who wore turbans being beaten because people they were though to be Muslims.

A change Kator Mulk noticed was that "people would ask me where I was from and then have follow-up questions about the political and social situation."

"I'm a pretty religious person. What bothered me was that the lines between religion and religious fanaticism became blurred," Kator Mulk said. "It offended me that people were calling this Islam." [Link]

The nation's tolerance was tested when more some 3,000 people died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania six years ago.

Mesa was no different, [Mesa Mayor Keno] Hawker reminded the Citadel residents, particularly after Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot dead outside his east Mesa gas station four days after the attack. Singh's convicted murder, Frank Roque, reportedly mistook Singh, a Sikh, for an Arab.

"He was gunned down for no other reason than he looked Middle Eastern," Hawker said.

But Hawker said he was heartened by the community's response to the murder, and the face of tolerance Mesa put forth after the nation's first hate-crime murder following the terrorist attacks.

"The City of Mesa embraced different cultures to learn more about the world," Hawker said. "And to learn more about the people out there." [Link]

FOREIGN doctors have been "victimised" in the aftermath of the failed bomb attacks in Glasgow and London, according to the new head of the British Medical Association.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, who was born in the Capital and studied at Edinburgh University, said colleagues from overseas feared a backlash after the revelation that NHS staff may have been involved in the attacks.

Several doctors were arrested in the wake of the failed car bomb attacks, though some have now been released.

Dr Meldrum, who was appointed chairman of the BMA last month, said today: "There certainly have been reports from Middle Eastern colleagues that they have felt quite nervous following what has happened in Glasgow."

He also spoke out against targeting doctors from abroad for tougher checks, and urged the authorities to show restraint.

"To suggest, as one or two suggest, that we need to particularly toughen up on the checking of people who come from abroad, seems to me out of proportion," he said.

Dr Meldrum also warned that all doctors felt under siege from increasing checks on how they carry out their work.

Many felt they were working in an atmosphere where there was an immediate assumption that they were bad at their jobs, he said. [Link]

Racist crime in the west of Scotland had increased after the suspected terror attack on Glasgow Airport, BBC Scotland has learned.

Strathclyde Police have released figures on racist crime and a senior officer confirmed that there had been a noticeable rise.

Community and political leaders were quick to call for calm in the aftermath of the attack.

The force said the rise may have been down to a greater willingness for minorities to report incidents.

Between 1 and 27 July, there were 258 reported racial attacks, 31 of which were airport-related, according to Strathclyde Police.

Previously, the force had been dealing with around 200 such incidents a month.

Speaking to the BBC Scotland news website, Chief Inspector Val Thomson of Strathclyde Police's diversity unit, said there had been a definite increase in attacks after the Glasgow Airport incident. [Link]

Racist crime has increased by almost a third in parts of Scotland since last month's foiled bomb attack on Glasgow Airport, reports The Independent.

According to the paper, the incidents include a suspected fire bombing of a mosque and verbal assaults on Asians.

Community and political leaders in Scotland have called for calm in the aftermath of the June 30 attack, but statistics released this weekend show that the country's Asian community has faced a backlash.

Strathclyde Police said it had recorded more than 10 racially-motivated crimes per day since the airport attack.

In the 12 days following July 1, there were 142 racist incidents.

Scottish Muslim representatives have voiced concerns over the figures, and believe many more have gone unreported.

Osama Saeed of the Muslim Association of Britain, said: 'We still need to build bridges and ensure that those responsible [for the attacks] are punished.' [Link]

Nearly three weeks removed from the [Glasgow] attacks, Cresswell said he's surprised there hasn't been any "backlash against the minorities. It was surprising, yet good to hear as well."

Yet, there appears to be an underlying fury that a quiet country would be attacked for no apparent reason, no apparent cause for retribution.

"It was shock, as such, I wouldn't say it was any fear," Cresswell, said. "We allow these people to come over here and better their lives, and this is how they repay us.

"At this point, it's just anger." [Link]

In the days and weeks that followed 9/11, we were gripped with incomparable fear. Mothers on soccer sidelines whispered about gas masks on e-Bay. We questioned the efficacy of duct-taped plastic wrap as a household barrier against chemical warfare.

The hysteria has since been quelled, but the fear remains, simmering, and reminders of our vulnerability - a car bomb in Glasgow, Michael Chertoff's "gut feeling"- are too frequent.

But I fear more than potential acts of terrorism: I fear the angry swell of our own anti-Muslim backlash. I fear the ugly vitriol spewed forth on the Internet, where anonymous commentators unleash torrents of raw hatred. When The Courant reported on the Muslim convention, the reader responses on the paper's website were so hateful and profane that the editors shut the comment thread down.

I fear for the Pakistani and Indian boys and girls in Glastonbury, who hear other children hiss "terrorist!" as they brush past in school hallways. I fear for the West Hartford teenage Muslim who denies his faith to avoid being bullied. We've become a nation that sanctions hate against 1.2 billion fellow inhabitants of the planet - very frightening.

In an effort to confront my fears, I attended the annual convention, which offered a free symposium for non-Muslims....

When I left the conference and entered the parking garage, I saw a Muslim woman walking in my way. Her face was covered, except for her eyes, by a veil - a niqab. My discomfort and uncertainty returned: Should I say hello? Is she allowed to speak to me? Does she hate me? Is she afraid? Am I?

We approached one another. A casual voice came from under the niqab, "Hi, how're you doing?" I could see the smile in her eyes.

I responded in kind. As people do. [Link]

For Britain's overseas doctors, all this has been bad news and the writing on the wall is already clear. It is now official that they are to be subjected to a more stringent vetting regime before they are considered for employment in the NHS. Doctors from India fear that they are likely to face greater scrutiny because of the Indian "connection'' to the London-Glasgow plot. Ramesh Mehta, president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, acknowledged that there was a great deal of "worry" among Indian doctors. Already, some 10,000 doctors from India are struggling to find jobs as a result of new immigration rules, which are discriminatory towards overseas doctors outside the European Union. Things can only become more difficult for them.

Muslim doctors are particularly concerned. "If a doctor is identifiable as a Muslim because of the beard or the hijab, we are worried that the trust between a doctor and a patient could be compromised,'' said a spokesman for the Federation of Student Islamic Societies.

So far, fears of a social backlash have proved unfounded. Unlike Australia where apparently some patients refused to be seen by Indian/Muslim doctors, there has been no such case in Britain. But anxiety remains and as one doctor said: "Just because nothing has happened does not mean that we are not under greater scrutiny. We are all quite conscious of it.'' [Link]