LOS ANGELES, Aug 25: The Muslims in the United States on Friday have organized another advocacy lobby to highlight plight of Muslim in India. This group will focus on appealing to Americans to help Muslims abroad defend their rights there.

The Indian Muslim Council USA announced its organization this week to keep Americans apprised of Muslims suffering under what it calls “fascist” suppression from nationalist Hindu groups in India.

“American people are very fair-minded,” Shaik Ubaid, president of the group, said: “We think they will care because no other country owes up to its own (discrimination) mistakes like America does”

Human rights and civil liberties groups say aggrieved minorities from all over the world often set up lobbies in the United States. But in the case of Islam, it is good to hear them arguing about religious liberty and civil rights, others said.

On Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a poll of US Muslims who said they were worried about their rights in the United States after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

Nearly six in 10 (57 per cent) said they experienced discrimination and nearly half (48 per cent) said their “lives have changed for the worse.”

In the past decade, US Muslim-rights groups have proliferated. They included the American Muslim Alliance, the American Muslim Council, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), and American Muslims for Jerusalem (AMJ).

There is also the Islamic Society of North America, which is an older mosque-based organization rather than a political interest group. While these groups argue for rights of Muslims in their adopted societies, few lobby for general human rights in predominantly Muslim countries.