As the war in Iraq continues and as a man with a "funny name" (his words) runs for president of the United States, there is an undercurrent — fast becoming a riptide — of negative feelings toward Muslims based mainly on old stereotypes and renewed prejudices.

Egged on by the voices of right-wing commentators who constantly harangue against "Islamist extremists," real and imagined, more and more Americans find it easy to discriminate against Muslims in general as well as their fellow citizens who happen to practice Islam....

There is no surprise that many Muslims in this country expressed discontent with the country's war on terrorism since, according to 53 percent of them, it has become more difficult to be Muslim in America since 9-11....

Only one-fourth of Muslim Americans said they had been victims of discrimination in the United States, "while 73 percent say they have never experienced discrimination while living in this country," according to survey results. [Link]

Drop in total reported cases may be due to fear, police say

The number of hateful acts identified by police dropped roughly 20 percent last year, but the county’s hate crimes coordinator said that some immigrant communities are not reporting crimes that would be considered hateful.

Montgomery County Police identified 42 hate crimes and incidents in 2007 with another ‘‘six or seven” acts determined inconclusive, said Dave Baker, hate crimes coordinator for county police.

Though that number is down from the recent average of roughly 55 per year, Baker cautioned against being overly encouraged.

‘‘I don’t think it’s a trend, and I don’t think it’s a significant deviation from the previous three to five years,” he said.

Much of his hesitation is because many more hate crimes are going unreported as some immigrant communities are not reporting crimes to police out of fear of deportation....

Muslims and Sikhs were also targeted last year. On Sept. 11, Gaithersburg resident and Muslim community activist Samira Hussein woke to find her tires slashed, an echo of a similar attack against her years earlier.

On Sept. 15, two elderly Sikh men were attacked in Burtonsville. Four teenagers from Silver Spring were charged, but the attack was ruled inconclusive as a hate crime because there was no direct evidence that the attack was motivated for religious reasons. [Link]

A survey published Friday has found that Muslims in Germany value the country's freedom of religion, but complain that they face discrimination because most of them are not German.

The government-funded survey, conducted in four main cities, concluded 10 per cent of Muslims were hostile to democracy.

Only 5 per cent said they supported the use of force so that Islam would prevail, but nearly half of the 1,000 respondents said force was justified to defend Islam if it was threatened by the West.

The study was conducted by Hamburg-based sociologists Katrin Brettfeld and Peter Wetzels.

Practically all said that they could practice Islam without hindrance in Germany and that this was a positive feature.

But more than half the Muslims complained at discrimination on account of their ethnic origins, with one in five saying they had experienced an incident of racism in the past 12 months.

Bekir Alboga, spokesman for the coordinating council of German Islamic bodies, said in Cologne that the report showed there was practically no difference between the attitudes of young Muslims and young non-Muslims to democracy and the rule of law.

The survey, commissioned by the interior ministry, showed 90 per cent of Muslims in Germany agreed that suicide attacks were cowardly and damaging to the Islamic cause. [Link]

There were 2,541 religious discrimination charges filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2006, up nearly 9% from 2005 and up more than 30% since before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. [Link]

Britons are more suspicious of Muslims than Americans and other Europeans are, according to a poll for the Financial Times.

Only 59 per cent of Britons thought it possible to be both a Muslim and a citizen of their country, a smaller proportion than in France, Germany, Spain, Italy or the US – the other countries polled by Harris Interactive.

British citizens were also the most likely to predict a "major terrorist attack" in their country in the next 12 months; to consider Muslims "a threat to national security", and to believe Muslims had too much political power in their country.

However, on more personal measures of integration – having Muslim friends and accepting the marriage of their child to a Muslim – Britons showed more enthusiasm than some other countries.

The findings suggest that terrorist plots against the UK, including the London bombings of July 7 2005, have hardened British attitudes towards Muslims. [Link]

On July 1, 2007, Satendar Singh, a 26-year-old Fijian man of Indian descent, was picnicking by a lake with his friends when he was beaten to death in what witnesses say was an ugly racial hate crime. Singh’s friends said that “a group of Russian-speaking men and women had directed homophobic slurs at Singh, and racial insults at his group before the physical attack,” according to a report in The Sacramento Bee.

No one else was injured in Singh’s group. Singh’s family members and doctors decided to end life support after four days. Singh is one of the latest victims in the growing number of hate crimes against Asian Americans.

According to a report by The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, on a national level, 46.3 percent of 11,430 offenses that occurred within the single-bias incidents were motivated by racial bias in 2001. Investigators determined 6.6 percent out of the 46.3 percent (5,290) offenses reflected an anti-Asian or anti-Pacific Islander bias.

In the post-Sept. 11 climate, experts say that Asian Americans are even more at risk of being victims of hate crimes.

In a nationwide Hate Crime Statistics Act study done by the FBI in 2001, the known hate crime offenses against Asian/Pacific Islanders were 349 compared to 317 in 2000. The number of victims in 2000 was 339 in comparison to 363 in 2001. The data on the report in 2001 was gathered post-Sept. 11.

Hate crime is an especially sensitive topic in the post Sept. 11 world, with the increase in hate crimes against South Asians. “There has always been an escalation of hate crimes against people who are deemed to be the other,” said Kavneet Singh, managing director of Washington-based Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. He noted the recent rise in hate crimes against Sikhs who are mistaken to be Muslim. South Asians have to always look over their shoulders when they are out in public, Singh said.

He indicated that cultural beliefs are being compromised because of the fear of hate crimes.

“Sikh men specifically [are] shedding their turbans, shaving their beards.”
South Asian cab drivers or convenience store owners are even more at risk of hate crimes because they do not have any control over who they interact with publicly, he said.

Hate crimes against Asian Americans continue to plague the community 25 years after Chinese-American draftsman Vincent Chin was beaten to death because of his race. His case was a turning point for Asian-American activism for fighting hate crimes and finding justice within their community.

On June 19, 1982, Chin was beaten to death at his bachelor party in Detroitby two unemployed auto workers, Ronald Ebens and his stepson Michael Nitz. Ebens and Nitz blamed the growing Japanese auto industry for taking their jobs away and killed Chin even though he is Chinese-American. Chin was attacked solely because of his racial appearance. Ebens and Nitz never served time. They received three years probation, which created enormous outrage from the Asian-American community.

At a panel discussion last month held by Asian Pacific Americans for
Progress to commemorate Chin’s tragic death, Asian-American community leaders say that the media and police don’t always necessarily view attacks against Asian Americans as hate crimes.

A hate crime last November against Hai Vo eerily resonates Chin’s case. Vo was beaten into a coma outside a bar in Grand Rapids, Mich. According to news reports, a group of men made racial remarks against Vo’s friends and family, who were celebrating a birthday that evening. Although Vo survived, he suffered many medical complications. None of the men accused of the crime was charged.

In June 2003, another crime that hit close to home for many San Franciscans involved five Asian-American boys who were beaten by a group of students who attended Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory high school in San Francisco. Though there were as many as 20 boys accused of the attack, only one was brought to trial and sentenced to community service.

San Francisco Police Commissioner Yvonne Lee said it is time to recognize how the authorities’ tendency to overlook the “racial angle” on a crime has influenced society’s opinion on hate crimes. She emphasized that Asian
Americans must speak out because a lot of cases slip under the media radar because authorities did not label them as hate crimes.

According to Southern Poverty Law Center, an internationally known independent law firm that specializes in fighting hate groups, just 44 percent of hate crimes are reported to police. They argue that some hate crimes don't make it into FBI statistics for various reasons: police may not necessarily report it as a hate crime; their departments may not report hate crime statistics to state officials; and in turn those officials may not accurately report to the FBI.

“If we had taken the word [of] what the authority tells us, many of these hate crimes would never come out as a hate crime statistics, and without statistics we could not make a point,” Lee said. Chin’s crime was not initially labeled as a hate crime by the authorities. Instead, it was seen as just another bar room brawl. It was not until the Asian community pushed for further investigation that the case became one of the first high-profile hate crimes against an Asian American.

Helen Zia, an award-winning author and activist, was one of the primary activists involved in advocating justice for Chin and his family.

“None of us thought it would still be talked about 25 years later,” Zia said. She recalled that at the time, she and other activists were cynical that the Chin case could gain such momentum in the public eye. Lee pointed out that even with the increased dialogue on hate crimes, there is a lack of activism today compared to when the Chin case was on trial. She said the Asian-American community needs to personalize hate crimes and let people know that anyone can be a victim of a hate crime.

“Anyone of us has the potential of becoming a target of a hate crime,” Lee said. “Just because we have the best and the brightest in law enforcement working with the most determined in the community does not mean hate crimes will be addressed. We have to continue to be vigilant.” [Link]

The number of civil rights complaints by Muslims in the United States jumped 25 percent in 2006, mainly because of a surge in immigration and citizenship problems, a leading US Muslim group said yesterday.

In its annual report on civil rights, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it processed 2,467 complaints last year, up from 1,972 in 2005.

Discrimination complaints against federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, more than doubled to 890 filings from about 380 in 2005 and accounted for more than 36 percent of civil rights complaints.

"This is the first time since 2004 that government agencies represented the highest percentage of complaints," the council said in the 40-page report, "The Status of Muslim Civil Rights in the United States."

"This increase was due primarily to the number of cases related to major immigration issues such as citizenship and naturalization delays," the report said.

Hate crime complaints, including physical attacks against individuals and mosques, rose 9.2 percent to 167 in 2006, compared with 153 a year earlier, the Washington-based advocacy group said in the report.

But hate crimes also declined as a percentage of all complaints, as did other discrimination categories, including racial or religious profiling and verbal harassment.

Independent polls have indicated rising unease of US Muslims about national government policies since the Sept. 11 attacks .

An April report by New York University Law School's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice said post-Sept. 11 US counterterrorism efforts had "institutionalized" discrimination by adding tighter security checks to immigration and citizenship procedures.

A nationwide Pew Research Center poll last month also suggested that 53 percent of Muslims living in the United States believe their lives have become more difficult since the 2001 attacks because of discrimination or government surveillance. [Link]

Preliminary results of a study released today by the Sikh Coalition show that over 58 percent of Sikh students in New York City public schools have been the victims of name-calling, threats or physical abuse due to their religion. The report also found that more than three quarters (77.5 percent) of male Sikh students who live in Queens have been subjected to teasing or harassment, while 18.9 percent of Sikhs have been told they look like terrorists by other students. Many who have been harassed also said that their school administrators failed to provide any assistance following complaints. The report, entitled “Hatred in the Hallways,” was not scheduled for publication until September. However, coalition workers decided to release their preliminary numbers early in light of a much-publicized bias incident involving the attack of a Sikh student in his school bathroom.

Less than two weeks ago, a 17 year-old Pakistani student allegedly forced Vacher Harpal, his 15-year-old Sikh classmate, into a bathroom at his Queens school, removed his turban and chopped his waist-length hair to his neck. According to Sikh law, men are required to keep their hair unshorn, making the forced haircut especially offensive. The perpetrator was arraigned on hate crime charges and now faces prison time. Amardeep Singh, the executive director of the coalition, said that Harpal had complained about harassment by other students on five separate occasions before the incident, but administrators had done little to intervene. “That is not acceptable. That is not what New York is about,” Singh said. Of course he’s right. We all know New York is about soulless consumerism, gross income inequalities that rival undeveloped African nations and the exploits of socialites—definitlely not racist, scissor-wielding school children. [Link]

Hate crimes have increased sharply over the last decade throughout Europe, according to a lengthy report by a US-based human rights group.

The 2007 Hate Crime Survey by Human Rights First, out tomorrow, records a rising tide of attacks against Muslims, Jews, gays and lesbians.

It notes rises in recent years in the UK, France, Germany, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. "In France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, governments have made serious efforts to combat hate crimes in recent years, although more needs to be done," the report says....

Muslims... have suffered according to the data. "In 2006, discrimination and violence against Muslims persisted throughout much of Europe. Though the number of registered incidents decreased from a peak level in 2005, after the subway bombings in London, the number of violent incidents remains high." [Link]

More than three-quarters of male Sikh students in Queens said they are teased or harassed in city schools due to their identity, according to a report released yesterday.

The report revealed that 62 of 80 Sikh boys polled over the last six months said they were subjected to name-calling, threats or physical abuse. Citywide, 58.4 percent of 197 male and female Sikh students surveyed said they’ve been harassed, including 18.9 percent who said other students have said they look like a terrorist.

“That is not acceptable,” said Amardeep Singh, executive director of the Sikh Coalition, which conducted the study. “That is not what New York is about.” [Link]

"When there's a war in Iraq, hate crime in the United States sort of pales in comparison," said Mehdi Bozorgmehr, noting one of the more recent obstacles faced by groups trying to rally Middle Eastern Americans to their own defense in the aftermath of 9/11. Bozorgmehr was guest lecturer at a public meeting of a UCLA sociology course on April 9, 2007, where he shared results of federally funded research on the backlash produced by 9/11 against Muslim Americans, Middle Easterners, South Asians, and individuals seen as "look-alikes." By a tabulation he cited, there were well over 600 hate crimes and at least four murders nationally in the days immediately following 9/11 that could be connected with the terrorist attacks. [Link]

RACISM in Scotland is a "cancer" that is getting bigger every day, it was claimed yesterday, as new figures revealed a large rise in attacks on members of ethnic- minority communities.

The number of racist crimes recorded by the police in Scotland was 6,439 in 2005-6, up 12 per cent from 5,732 the previous year and representing an average of more than 17 crimes every day.

The most extensive analysis of racism ever conducted in Scotland also found that 5,124 racist incidents, including verbal abuse and forms of discrimination, were recorded in 2005-6 - an increase of 588 (13 per cent).

Most victims, the Scottish Executive research found, were of Asian origin, the largest group being Pakistani.

Last night a leading member of Scotland's Pakistani community said racism was rife and getting worse.

Shami Khan, Edinburgh's only Asian councillor, said: "It's a cancer of society and it's getting worse day by day, especially for the Muslim community.

"These figures are just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of victims are scared and don't want to come." [Link]

Ethnic minorities and women with religious convictions have the toughest time when it comes to finding work, according to research published by the Department for Work and Pensions.

The research analyses the probability of being in employment based on different combinations of ethnic and religious group.

It finds that for women, the employment penalties faced by Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds are higher than the penalty for any ethnic group of no religion. [Link]

Sehan Nabry, a school bus driver from Burnsville, said her boss confiscated her prayer mats and complained that her ritual hand and feet washing messed up an office bathroom.

Nabry said giving up her daily prayers, one of the five pillars of Islam, is not an option. Instead she did what an increasing number of Muslims are doing in Minnesota and around the country _ she sued.

"People told me I should just leave the job and find a new job, but I was thinking if I leave this job, theres no guarantee there wont be another manager like him," Nabry said. "I came to America for freedom. Why should I walk away?"

In Minnesota, the number of Muslims per year who filed federal complaints alleging religious discrimination at work climbed from four a decade ago to 66 last year. Nationally, the number has more than doubled since the mid-1990s.

Federal officials point to both the rising Muslim population and a post-Sept. 11 backlash as reasons for the increase. The ensuing lawsuits put the cherished American right to religious freedom against what many employers say is simply an effort to run an efficient business. [Link]