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Attacks on U.S. Muslims Claim Another Life as Bush Calls for End to Violence
WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The murder of an Egyptian-born businessman in the Los Angeles suburb of San Gabriel is the latest in a series of attacks on U.S. Muslims, prompting a harsh denunciation from U.S. President George W. Bush.
"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," the president said at an Islamic Center here on Monday.
The FBI, in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, confirmed Sunday it considered the attack on grocer Adel Karas, 48, actually a Coptic Christian, to have been motivated by religious hatred.
FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin said Monday that Karas' murder by three men, who apparently entered his store to rob him late Saturday, would be investigated as a hate crime.
"In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect. Moms who wear covering must not be intimidated in America. That's not the America I know; that's not the America I value," Bush said.
The murder of Karas brings to 41 the number of attacks on Arab-American citizens and institutions the FBI is investigating in the wake of the September 11th terror operation against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which Bush has pinned on Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Washington's Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) recorded more than 400 incidents of anti-Muslim harassment, threats, discrimination and violence since last Tuesday.
A 49-year-old Sikh gas station owner was shot dead at his gas station in Mesa, Arizona, Saturday night; a Dallas, Texas, Pakistani Muslim convenience store owner suffered the same fate in his store.
Aside from these deaths, countless other incidents of physical assaults, including a stabbing in Brooklyn and beatings in several cities; death threats, bomb threats, arson, destruction and vandalism of Islamic centers and mosques; and other incidents of harassment have been reported nationwide, not including similar incidents in Canada and Australia and across Europe.
In one of the more recent incidents, a mosque was badly damaged after a man drove his car at 80 mph straight through the front door of a mosque in Parma, Ohio, causing more than $100,000 worth of damages, according to a mosque spokesman.
"I want to make it very clear: vigilante attacks and threats against Arab-Americans will not be tolerated," FBI director Robert Mueller vowed Monday.
But despite the warnings, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment is rampant, so much so that trials of Arab defendants are being postponed.
A death-penalty trial of an Egyptian refugee charged with the mutilation murder of a 12-year-old in central California has been postponed after 18 of 89 potential jurors reported the horrific attacks on New York and Washington could undermine their ability to be fair.
"In fairness to the defense, I did not want to see my emotions and feelings over the attacks become a part of the trial," said Robert Blum, 50, the first of the potential jurors to admit a bias.
Bush, on Monday, removed his shoes before entering the Islamic Center in accordance with Islamic custom, quoted the Qur'an during his visit to the center, which has received at least one bomb threat since September 11th.
Bush quoted from the Qur'an while speaking: "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."
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