”It seems that everyone who has an Arab name is a suspect” these days, said Osama Siblani, the editor of the Arab American News.
”It’s very discouraging. I’m very depressed.”
The comment could have been made in the days immediately after the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, when Arabs and Muslims felt they were publicly vilified, yanked off airplanes and rounded up and held in detention simply because of their ethnicity.
But Siblani was speaking this week, reacting to the announcement that US authorities plan to step up surveillance of some visiting foreigners as part of the United States’ increased security against terrorist attacks.
The program will require Syrian nationals and individuals deemed a ”national security,” risk to be photographed and fingerprinted and to register on entry.
The individuals singled out for special attention will also have to register with authorities on an annual basis thereafter for the duration of their visa, according to Justice Department officials. The concern among civil rights groups and representatives of the Arab and Muslim communities is that the 100 000 individuals stopped at entry points as a result of this program will largely be Arabs and Muslims.
For many in the Muslim community the move intensifies the feeling of being identified as the enemy within, even if only by association.
”These latest steps are nothing but the imposition of guilt by association,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
”They show that the Department of Justice cannot distinguish between people planning or engaged in criminal activity and law-abiding residents.”
The measures apply to foreign nationals holding short-term visas –people like Salih Manasra, a 28-year-old Palestinian researcher at the University of Michigan in the Midwestern United States.
Manasra, an engineering researcher who has spent the past four years in the United States, interpreted the move as another effort to blacken the image of Arabs in the eyes of the US public.
US authorities want ”Arabs to be defined as terrorists,” he said, to be seen as ”evil.”
”This proves how undemocratic the US justice system is.”
The sense of injustice runs deep among Muslim residents here, and it’s not just a perception, according to a recent poll. Three-quarters of Muslim-Americans interviewed for the poll by the market research firm Zogby International said either they, or someone they know, have experienced some form of discrimination since September 11, be it physical or verbal abuse or harassment.
”Pig religion,” and ”you guys did it,” were just some of the taunts reported by the 517 individuals surveyed, while others said they had been spat at or had their hijabs (headscarves) pulled off.
”It is clear … that reports in recent months of anti-Muslim discrimination, harassment or attacks have not been exaggerated,” said Dennis Gilbert, a professor of
sociology at Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York whose class designed the poll.
There’s also a sense of lingering resentment in the community about the September-11 inspired crackdown on Middle Eastern visitors who have committed minor immigration violations.
Several hundred foreigners of Arab or Muslim extraction are being held in detention centres across the country, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Siblani worries that the treatment of Arabs and Muslims here could have repercussions around the world.
”This country leads the world by example,” he said. – Sapa-AFP