Bias against Muslims on the rise, group says

July 2, 2007 Monday

By Rebecca Rosen Lum

Civil rights violations targeting Bay Area Muslims spiked last year, ranging from schoolyard taunts to deadly assaults to routine citizenship applications strangled by government red tape.

Reports more than doubled in 2005-06, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The nonprofit organization documented 246 incidents in 2006, up from 113 in 2005.

The Bay Area numbers reflect national numbers, which show episodes of anti-Muslim bias jumping by

25 percent. California accounted for nearly one-third of all the complaints.

The report chronicles verbal and physical harassment, and circumstances in which Muslims were singled out for questioning, subjected to lengthy delays in immigration or naturalization, or otherwise discriminated against. The crime scenes ranged from airports and government agencies to schools, work places, and mosques.

And cyberspace.

An e-mail from an angry Danville man to an East Bay blogger triggered one of the complaints.

"Hey, (expletive) bag, get the (expletive) out of my country," it read. "If I run across you in my daily tasks, I will get you."

Twenty-four hours and plenty of dialogue later, the Danville man apologized.

"Hate mail is actually quite common," council spokeswoman Abiya Ahmed said.

Alia Ansari of Fremont never got an apology. In October 2006 the Afghan mother of six was gunned down as she walked with her 3-year-old daughter. A suspect was arrested, but no motive has been determined. Family members and Muslim leaders suspect her head scarf marked her for a hate crime.

The rise in reported cases is partly due to the organization's Citizen Delay project, which documents instances in which immigrants are forced to wait beyond the legal limit of 120 days for their citizenship applications to be processed, Ahmed said. Many have been waiting for years, she said.

Legal or immigration problems accounted for 35 percent of complaints, followed by due process issues and hate mail.

Ahmed herself figured in one of the hate mail complaints. After reading an Oct. 14 commentary in the Contra Costa Times in which Ahmed said all thoughtful Muslims decry violence, an Oakland letter writer sent her a vitriolic missive saying her words were "like poison."

"May you wander in the desert for a thousand years," the letter said. "Believe me no one will miss you, or look for you or pine for your return."

The agency received 276 reports, and found 246 warranted further investigation, Ahmed said. In some cases, council staffers mediated problems. In others, they referred victims to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Complaints of workplace discrimination based on both religion and national origin had been steadily declining since they spiked in 2002, but increased last year, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

"There is a slight increase at certain times," said Azima Subedar, civil rights coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We got more calls when the London bombings happened."

The findings struck a chord with attorneys at the Asian Law Caucus, who take cases of employment discrimination, citizenship delays and racial and ethnic profiling.

Attorney Malcolm Yeung said, "On an initial glance, you would think, why would one of the most diverse and theoretically progressive areas of the country see so much discrimination? The diversity of the Bay Area doesn't mean you don't have to be vigilant."