WASHINGTON , September 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – A U.S. national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group issued a report this week, saying that to many Muslims, 9-11 represented a turning point in how America is struggling to accept them as a community with a distinct religious identity.

A report issued by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said: “Not only did Muslims die in the attacks, but they also had to cope immediately with a violent backlash and lingering anti-Muslim agitation. Islamaphobes came out strongly in favor of placing the guilt on the religion of Islam and the worldwide community of Muslims.”

The report said that despite the fear and stress that Muslims suffered in the wake of the attacks, many things have changed for the better in the life of Muslims as a community.

It cited the fact that interfaith communication has now become part and parcel of ordinary Muslim activity, even in communities where such functions had not even been considered in the past.

“The moment that Muslims in America turned on their televisions and were confronted with the horrible reality of 9-11’s terrorist attacks, the paths they would need to take in the following months became crystal clear. Muslims realized their responsibilities as a community whose faith has been linked to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

“Some Americans who succumbed to bigotry and intolerance tried to question their loyalty; some even committed violence against them. At the same time, Muslims felt the anguish of being part and parcel of a nation that had been the target of an inhuman attack,” said CAIR’s report.

Public opinion polls varied in their assessment, but overall they indicated that the majority of Americans appreciated the strong stance of Muslims, and showed tolerance and kindness toward them in the wake of anti-Muslim hate crimes, said CAIR.

Local and federal authorities have taken a decisive position against hate crimes. However, anti-Muslim sentiment continues to be harbored and tolerated even within sensitive governmental bodies, said the report adding that the U.S. government has hardly found the right balance between security and civil liberty.

“The hysteria, and perhaps the lack of Muslim political clout, led Congress to acquiesce to government moves sacrificing the civil rights of Arabs and Muslims in the name of fighting terrorism,” said the report.

In addition, the wave of anti-Muslim hate crimes after 9-11 was the worst in the nation’s history. Although it has tapered off since the early weeks of the crisis, anti-Muslim agitation in television and radio has contributed to unprecedented acts of hate crimes.

The organization said that the events of 9-11 were followed by a surge of public interest in Islam and Muslims with ordinary people wanted to know what Muslims thought of the attacks and others began wondering about the intentions of Muslims in their midst.

After the attacks, CAIR said, many Muslim leaders found themselves in demand as sensitivity trainers for companies and institutions interested in exercising good corporate citizenship by reducing the possibility of bias in their workplace. 

Shortly after the attacks, almost equal percentages of Americans felt positive, negative, and neutral about Islam as a religion. A September 15th poll by Reuters and Zogby International found that 38 percent believed Islam is a religion that encourages fanaticism, 42 percent believed it does not, and 20 percent were not sure. (The survey was conducted September 15 - 16, 2001 .)

Most were able to distinguish between Islam as a religion and the actions of some Muslims: 84 percent of those surveyed considered the U.S. to be at war with a small group of terrorists who may be Muslim, compared to eight percent who say the U.S. is at war with Islam, said CAIR.

However many Americans came to the aid of Muslims in the wake of violent post 9-11 backlash, said CAIR, citing the case of Jennifer Schock, 31, a Web designer from Fairfax, Virginia, who sprang into action upon learning that some American Muslim women started leaving their head scarves at home out of fear for their safety.

Schock and other non-Muslim women around the U.S. began donning scarves themselves as a sign of solidarity with their Muslim sisters and through the Internet (Website: www.interfaithpeace.org), they established a global network called Scarves for Solidarity to support the right of Muslim women to choose their headwear without fearing retaliation. 

Meanwhile, post September 11 there was a rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric from renowned people like Rev. Jerry Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, televangelist Pat Robertson, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Republican Senator Gordon Smith, conservative commentator Ann Coulter, Republican Congressmen Saxby Chambliss, Free Congress Foundation President Paul Weyrich and evangelist Franklin Graham.

Outside a local church in Idaho a sign equated Islam with evil reading in block capital letters: “The spirit of Islam is the spirit of the Antichrist.” 

The organization said that during the first six months after the attacks, it received 1717 reports of harassment, violence and other discriminatory acts.

Although violent attacks have dropped sharply, CAIR has logged more than 325 complaints in the second six-month period after the attacks—a 30 percent increase over the same period prior to 9-11, it said.

And most recently, on August 30, 2002 , an anti-Muslim hate-rape took place in California , perhaps the first such attack on record in U.S. history. An 18 year-old man raped a 15-year old girl inside Palo Alto Longs Drugs store while making anti-Muslim comments, according to the Palo Alto Police Department.

A dozen murders have been reported, including a handful of incidents in which the victims were simply mistaken for Muslims and Arabs because of their appearance.

Many mosques were attacked or threatened and many Muslim women became fearful of wearing head cover in public, the report said.

Workplace discrimination complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) soared after 9-11, said the report. Between 9-11 and Dec. 6, officials said the EEOC received 166 complaints of illegal discrimination, mostly involving Muslim workers who were fired from their jobs.

During the same period a year ago, only 64 such claims were filed.  By early February 2002, the agency has received 260 claims from Muslims since 9-11, an increase of 168% over the same period a year earlier. By early March 2002, the national figure of complaints reached 300. These do not include complaints filed with state and local agencies. The number continued to increase, the report said.

In addition, the organization said that the first few days after the 9-11 attacks, government officials, including President Bush, made a point to reach out to the Muslim community. However, since that initial period of support, a number of governmental policies have singled out American Muslim organizations and immigrants from Muslim countries.

An example of that, said the report, was the signing of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, better known by its acronym, the USA PATRIOT Act. The law, signed on October 26, 2001 , which hurriedly passed with little public debate, has been criticized by constitutional law experts saying it eroded civil liberties Americans take for granted.

In particular, critics have charged that the Act gives the executive branch the power to detain immigrant suspects for lengthy periods of time, sometimes indefinitely.

The law permits personal or business records to be seized for an investigation without prior evidence of connection to terrorism or criminal activity. The government only needs to claim that the seizure is designed to look for such evidence.

A year after the 9-11 attacks, a significant number of non-U.S. nationals originally from Arab and Muslim countries still remain in detention. Most of these people are believed to have overstayed their immigration visas, although they have neither been linked to the attacks nor charged with any criminal offenses. There are some 300,000 absconders in the U.S.

In November 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that the government would conduct “voluntary” interviews with 5,000 legal Muslim foreign nationals. When this was completed earlier this year, Mr. Ashcroft announced that an additional 3,000 people of the same category of individuals would next be sought.

Three Muslim charities have been effectively shut down since December 2001 and are now engaged in a legal battle against the federal government, said the report.

On the same issue, the New York based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights said in a release published Thursday, September 5, that since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has introduced a series of security laws and practices that contradict the core values and principles on which the American government is founded.

"Viewed separately, some of the changes may not seem extreme, especially when seen as a response to the September attacks," said Michael Posner, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee. "But when you connect the dots, a different picture emerges. The composite picture outlined by this report shows that too often the U.S. government's mode of operations since September 11 has been at odds with core American and international human rights principles."

In the new report, "A Year of Loss: Reexamining Civil Liberties since September 11," the Lawyers Committee said that the United States has much to mourn over the past year. In addition to the loss of life and a sense of invulnerability, the report says, "the United States has lost something essential and defining: some of the cherished principles on which the country is founded have been eroded or disregarded."