Arab Americans Attacked, Threatened

Associated Press
September 13, 2001

BRIDGEVIEW, Illinois -- Arab Americans and Muslims around the country have been attacked, threatened and harassed in a backlash over the terrorist bloodbath.

Police turned back 300 marchers - some waving American flags and shouting "USA! USA!" - as they tried to march on a mosque in this Chicago suburb late Wednesday. Three demonstrators were arrested. There were no injuries and demonstrators were kept blocks from the closed Muslim house of worship. "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have," said 19-year-old Colin Zaremba who marched with the group from Oak Lawn.

Federal authorities said they had identified more than a dozen hijackers of Middle Eastern descent in Tuesday's terror attacks in New York and Washington and have gathered evidence linking them to Saudi-born terror mastermind Osama bin Laden and other extremist networks. In all, perhaps 50 people were involved in the plot, government officials said.

In a nationally televised telephone call Thursday to New York City's mayor and the state's governor, President Bush urged people not to take vengeance against Arab Americans.

Ziad Asali, president of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, expressed concern about the incidents.

"Arab Americans, in addition to feeling the intense depths of pain and anger at this attack we share with all our fellow citizens, are feeling deep anxiety about becoming the targets of anger from other Americans," he said. "We appeal to all Americans to bear in mind that crimes are the responsibility of the individuals who committed them, not ethnic or religious groups."

A Molotov cocktail was thrown against the side of the Islamic Society of Denton, Texas, early Thursday, causing an estimated $2,500 in damage, said Kiersten Dieterle, a spokeswoman for the Dallas suburb. The building was empty and there were no injuries.

In Chicago, a firebomb was tossed Wednesday at an Arab-American community center. No injuries were reported.

In the suburb of Palos Heights, a man was charged with a hate crime for allegedly attacking a gas station attendant he believed was Arab with the blunt end of a machete, police said. The attendant, who is Moroccan, did not seek treatment.

"The terrorists who committed these horrible acts would like nothing better than to see us tear at the fiber of our democracy and to trample on the rights of other Americans," Illinois Gov. George Ryan said.

In Huntington, N.Y., a 75-year-old man who was drunk tried to run over a Pakistani woman in the parking lot of a shopping mall, police said. The man then followed the woman into a store and threatened to kill her for "destroying my country."

A man in a ski mask in Gary, Ind., fired an assault rifle at a gas station where Hassan Awdah, a U.S. citizen born in Yemen, was working Wednesday, the Post Tribune of Merrillville, Ind., reported. Police were investigating it as a hate crime.

Tamara Alfson, an American working at the Kuwait Embassy in Washington, spent Wednesday counseling frightened Kuwaiti students attending schools across the United States.

"Some of them have already been harassed. People have been quite awful to them," said Alfson, an academic adviser to about 150 students.

In a show of patriotism, 45 people from the Islamic community in Tampa, Fla., registered with blood services to donate Wednesday, and 30 members of the Muslim Students Association at the University of South Florida signed up.

"You feel the pain twice: once because of what has happened and once because of the looks you get," said Sami Al-Arian, an engineering teacher at the University of South Florida.

Abu Nahidian, director of the Manassas Mosque in Virginia, said his congregation has been the target of insults and hate messages left on the office answering machine. "We have some recordings in our tapes that say, 'We hate you so-and-so Muslims and we hope you die,"' Nahidian said.

A mosque in Lynnwood, Wash., was vandalized, and no one showed up for afternoon prayers at the Islamic Center of Spokane.

In Australia, a school bus carrying Muslim children was the target of stone-throwers in Brisbane, and vandals tried to set fire to a Lebanese church in apparent acts of retaliation for the terrorist attacks in the United States, officials said.

In East Lansing, Mich., a shot was fired into the home of a Muslim family next door to the Islamic Center. No one was injured. Windows were broken at the Muslim Students Association office at Wayne State University in Detroit.

In Dearborn, Mich., Issam Koussan told The Detroit News he bought large U.S. flags to fly in front of his home and outside his supermarket after men pulled into his parking lot and yelled threats and racial slurs at his customers.

"I just feel I needed to show my loyalty to this country," Koussan said.