NEWS: Rap Song Removed From Shelves Because It Insults Muslims

Continuing harassment and attacks:

By 2001-SEP-25, three weeks after the attack, there have been many assaults on Muslims in the U.S. In addition, Sikhs are being targeted because some are being mistaken for Muslims. Hispanic-Americans have been harassed, presumably because of their skin color. One Egyptian Copt was murdered. Even members of the Baha'i Faith have been harassed. It is ironic that Baha'is are themselves viciously persecuted in Iran, and Copts are oppressed in Egypt.

Some examples are:

- On the afternoon of Saturday, 2001-SEP-15, a gunman killed the 49 year old owner of a gas station in Mesa, AZ. He was a Sikh. His family believes that he was killed because he "looked Middle Eastern." Additional shots were fired at a Lebanese clerk and at the home of an Afghan family.

- On the evening of Saturday, 2001-SEP-15, a gunman killed a Pakistani Muslim store owner in Dallas, TX.

- Adel Karas, 48, an Egyptian-American grocer was shot and killed near his International Market store in San Gabriel, CA. He was a Copt -- neither Muslim nor Arab. No money was taken. Police are investigating the murder as a possible hate crime.

- A man drove his car through the front entrance of Parma Mosque in Cleveland OH.

- Also on Saturday, a Christian of Egyptian origin was shot dead in California.

- Near Chicago, IL, there was a march in which about 300 anti-Arab youths waved flags, shouted "USA, USA," and attempted to march on a mosque in Bridgeview, IL -- a suburb southwest of Chicago. Colin Zaremba, 19, said: "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have." Three demonstrators were arrested.

- In Chicago, a Molotov cocktail was thrown t an Arab-American community center. There were no injuries and little damage.

- In Huntington, NY, Adam Lang, reportedly a drunken driver, 75, allegedly tried to kill a Pakistani woman with his car. He later followed the woman into a store and threatened to kill her for "destroying my country."

- In Gary, IN, a man wearing a mask pumped over 20 bullets from a high-powered assault rifle at a Muslim, Hassan Awdah. He survived. Hassan is a U.S. citizen, born in Yemen.

- In Lynnwood, WA, a mosque was vandalized.

- In Suffolk County, NY, a man allegedly made anti-Arab threats and pointed a handgun at the employee of a gas station. He was arrested.

- In a prison in Washington state, two inmates fought over an anti-Muslim slur.

- a gasoline bomb was thrown into the home of a Sikh family in California.

- Two mosques were firebombed with Molotov cocktails during the weekend of OCT-20-21. They are located in Burlington and Mississauga, near Toronto ON Canada. Kendrich House, 35, from Oakville ON has allegedly been charged.

Muslims elsewhere in the English speaking world were also targeted:

- A 15 year old boy in Ottawa, Canada was attacked by a gang and badly injured.

- The Samaj Hindu temple in Hamilton, ON, Canada was firebombed by an arsonist, causing $600,000 in damages. Police speculate that the perpetrator mistook the temple for a mosque.

- Firebomb attacks on Canadian mosques causing minimal damage have occurred in Montreal, Quebec, St. Catherines, ON and Oshawa, ON.

- In Australia, a school bus containing Muslim children was stoned.

- Vandals tried set fire to a Lebanese Christian church, also in Australia.

Five days after the attack, the number of anti-Muslim incidents reported to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reached 210.

Move to limit backlash against Muslims

Meetings were being held across Britain as the authorities and communities moved to limit any backlash.

Police said about 70 incidents against minorities had been recorded. They ranged from the suspicious fires to two possible assaults, verbal abuse and threatening calls.

IV. A HISTORY OF BACKLASH ATTACKS AGAINST ARABS AND MUSLIMS IN AMERICA

Long before September 11, the stereotype of the Arab or Muslim as a "terrorist" had taken hold in the American imagination and fueled anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice. That prejudice sometimes led to hate crimes, particularly after acts of violence ascribed rightly or wrongly to Arab or Muslim terrorists. In light of the history of backlash violence against Arabs and Muslims in the United States before September 11 2001, the hate crimes that followed September 11 were all too predictable. Government officials should be aware that there is a danger of an anti-Arab or anti-Muslim backlash anytime terrorism is linked to these communities.

MORE...

Army on alert for backlash over abuse

The Royal Military Police announced an investigation into the three minute, 12 second tape that was handed to the News of the World.

As well as the beating of the four young males, including a child, which followed a riot in southern Iraq in early 2004, another defenceless man is filmed being kicked by soldiers and a civilian corpse is defiled. The beatings are accompanied by a gleeful commentary from the corporal who allegedly filmed the attacks.

ATTACKS ON MUSLIMS

The village of Dilimi, on the outskirts of Jos, was one of the areas that suffered the most intense destruction. Inhabited in majority by Muslims, virtually the entire village was razed to the ground. Human Rights Watch researchers visited Dilimi on October 6 in the company of displaced residents who were returning there for the first time since they fled...

Know Your Right-Wing Speakers: Michelle Malkin

So distasteful are her rants that in November 2004 a Norfolk Virginia newspaper, the Virginian Pilot, dropped Malkin’s nationally syndicated column. Another columnist for the paper, Bronwyn Lance Chester, explained, “I think [Malkin] habitually mistakes shrill for thought provoking and substitutes screaming for discussion…. She’s the worst of what’s wrong with punditry today. She adds absolutely nothing to genuine political discourse.”

Representatives of the advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which had complained that McAllen officials were not investigating the fire as a possible hate crime, said they were stunned Wednesday to learn of Mr. Abunar's arrest.

Malkin also made headlines last December when, in her syndicated column, she criticized the “Associated Press, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell and others in the Bush-bashing press corps” for “accus[ing] the White House and 10 soldiers from the Army’s 42nd Infantry Division of ‘staging’” a now infamous October 13 video conference in which Bush spoke with soldiers stationed in Iraq. According to Malkin, NBC News was “indulging in its Bush-deranged feeding frenzy” over what Malkin asserted was a totally impromptu and genuine conversation. Perhaps NBC made such assumptions because the preparations for the event, in which soldiers were told what they would be asked and coached on their answers by administration officials before the President arrived were accidentally transmitted to reporters via a live satellite feed.

Source.