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Catholic Charities Bear Witness at Local Mosques
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (IslamOnline) - Catholic Charities of America members have sworn to be physically present at local mosques in California to bear witness, and to discourage hate crime perpetrators from targeting Muslims and their houses of prayer, according to Donna Becker, supervisor of legal services for the organization based in California.
Reports of hate crimes against Muslims across the nation, and the world, have flooded news broadcasts in the days since the tragic attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, which could yield more than 5,000 fatalities, many of whom are Muslim and Arab.
Across the nation, mosques shut their doors and cancelled Friday jum'ah, or congregational, prayers.
In one of the most violent attacks on a mosque, a group of 350 people participating in a "patriotic rally" defied the very bedrock of patriotic solidarity with their fellow Americans and surrounded a mosque in Chicago shouting threats and threatening to attack the mosque and Muslims in the region.
However, Muslims across the nation fear for their very lives as incidences of hate-crimes increase.
Leaders of the Muslim and Arab community in the U.S. have aggressively condemned the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, citing that American Muslims and Arab lives were also lost in the tragedy.
Muslims across the nation have organized blood drives and have participated in rescue operations at "ground zero" in New York and Washington.
Reports from Toronto to Dallas, from San Francisco to Raleigh, tell of bomb threats and death threats, physical assaults, mosque and religious center vandalism, verbal attacks and harassment of Muslims, Arabs and others who have no relation to either group, but simply don't look "American enough".
IslamOnline as well fell victim to violent threats Thursday at their Washington offices.
Dozens of Muslims, Arabs, and any people thought to be of Middle East descent, have been attacked in hate crimes aimed at them by people who unjustly blame them for the acts of the terrorists.
U.S. President George W. Bush himself addressed the issue of a backlash Thursday in phone conversation meeting with New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and New York Governor George Pataki.
"Our nation must be mindful that there are thousands of Arab Americans who live in New York City, who love their flag just as much as the three of us do," Bush said, "and we must be mindful that as we seek to win the war that we treat Arab Americans and Muslims with the respect they deserve.
"I know that is your attitudes as well, certainly the attitude of this government, that we should not hold one who is a Muslim responsible for an act of terror."
Giuliani has repeatedly appealed to New Yorkers to avoid blaming all Muslims for the acts of a few.
"Nobody should engage in group blame," Giuliani said in the New York Daily
News. "That's the type of sickness we are suffering from - people blaming a group for the activities of a few people."
With additional reporting by Neveen A. Salem
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