Arab League Council Denounces Harassment of Muslims in US

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

Tehran Times - October 23, 2001

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=10/23/01&Cat=4&Num=019

Arab League Council Denounces Harassment of Muslims in U.S. 

TUNIS--An Arab League institution said Monday that Arabs and Muslims
living in the United States were being harassed and badly treated
since the September 11 attacks.

The secretariat of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers, which is
based in Tunisia, said U.S. authorities and citizens were unfairly
targeting Muslims despite Washington's rejection of a link between
terrorism and Islam.

Arabs and Muslims have been subjected "to mistreatment and harassment
of all kinds", AFP quoted a statement released yesterday.

"Several people were arrested only because they are Muslims or
Arabs," the statement said, adding that many remained in custody in
"horrible conditions."

Human Rights Watch said last month that monitoring groups had
received several hundred complaints of retaliatory attacks against
Muslims, Arab Americans, South Asians and others after the September
11 terrorist strikes, which Washington blames on Osama bin Laden and
his Al-Qaeda network.

A shooting rampage in Mesa, Arizona, reportedly left one Sikh man
dead, with additional shots fired at a Lebanese clerk and the home of
an Afghan family.

An Egyptian-American grocer was shot and killed near his store in San
Gabriel, California, and a storeowner from Pakistan was shot dead in
Dallas, Texas, Human Rights Watch said.

Yemen also said in a report that five of its nationals have been
killed in hatred crimes following the assaults on the United States.

Beatings and other violent assaults were reported across the country,
as were death and bomb threats, the New York-based rights watchdog
said.

The Arab League Council meanwhile said it condemned all forms of
terrorism but "underlined the necessity of distinguishing between
terrorism and the struggle of people against foreign occupation."

The statement was issued ahead of talks here among police chiefs and
top security officials from nations in the Council of Arab Interior
Ministers, who were to hold their 25th regular meeting on Monday.

The Secretary General of Interpol, Ronald K. Noble, was also due to
take part in the talks in the Tunisian capital, expected to cover
cooperation among Arab nations in fighting crime, fraud and theft of
intellectual property.

Participants were to prepare recommendations to the next meeting of
Arab League interior ministers due to take place in Beirut in January
next year, the council secretariat said.
 
=================================================================
  NY Transfer News Collective   *   A Service of Blythe Systems 
           Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us          
              339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012             
  http://www.blythe.org                  e-mail: nyt@blythe.org 
=================================================================
 
nytrc-10.23.01-16:57:23-9294