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Bush Calls for End to Violence Against U.S. Muslims
WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday called for an end to violence against U.S. Muslims, which flared up in the wake of last week's terror attacks in New York and Washington.
"Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America. They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed," he said at an Islamic Center here.
"In our anger and emotion our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect. Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes. Moms who wear covering must not be intimidated in America. That's not the America I know; that's not the America I value," he said.
Earlier, FBI director Robert Mueller also sternly denounced such wrongdoing, saying: "I want to make it very clear: vigilante attacks and threats against Arab-Americans will not be tolerated."
Mueller said the Federal Bureau of Investigation had initiated 40 investigations into reported attacks on Arab-American citizens and institutions since the September 11th strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Following the attacks, which Bush and other top officials have pinned on Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported more than 350 incidents of harassment, hate crimes and other attacks against Muslims and Arabs in America.
The Islamic Center visited by Bush, who was flanked by area Muslim leaders, has received at least one bomb threat, according to spokesman Farzad Darui, who told Agence France Presse (AFP) that no such harassment occurred "in recent times" - including the 1991 Gulf War.
Observing Muslim custom, Bush, his aides, and reporters, removed their shoes before entering the center and women in the group wore veils.
The U.S. leader also quoted from the Qur'an, saying: "In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil, for that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule."
Bush took pains to separate the suspected authors of history's worst terrorist attack from Muslims as a whole, declaring: "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam ... Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace, they represent evil and war."
In contrast, the estimated seven million Muslims in the United States "make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country [they] are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads, and they need to be treated with respect," said Bush.
The backlash of violence claimed its first lives this weekend; a Sikh man was shot to death at his gas station in Mesa, Arizona, and a Pakistani Muslim convenience store owner was shot at his store in Pleasant Grove, a suburb of Dallas, Texas. Both murders occurred Saturday night and are being investigated as possible hate crimes.
"Right now, we're considering bomb threats 'minor,' if you can believe it," said one CAIR official, who declined to be named. "Major" incidents include killings and stabbings - actual violence rather than mere threats.
Since Tuesday, Islamic centers across the country have been vandalized, even shot at or attacked with Molotov cocktails; individuals have reported countless verbal assaults and numerous physical assaults as well. A Muslim girl in Brooklyn was stabbed and is now recovering, and an elderly Sikh man in Queens was shot with a pellet gun and beaten with a baseball bat.
The House of Representatives passed a resolution Saturday (Joint Resolution 23) which condemned "any acts of violence or discrimination against any Americans, including Arab Americans and Muslim Americans," and called on the FBI to investigate hate crimes to assure that "the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans, including Arab-Americans and Muslims, should be protected at all times, particularly during times of domestic and international turmoil."
The resolution, introduced by Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA), Orrin Hatch R-UT), Russell Feingold (D-WI), and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), echoed sentiments expressed in the wake of the backlash by Bush, his father and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, that racist attacks on Muslims and Arabs living in America will not be tolerated.
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