WASHINGTON, July 15: Anti-Muslim violence, discrimination and harassment is rising in the United States, mainly due to unrelenting fall-out and antagonism following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, said a report on Tuesday.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Islamic civil rights group, said its office alone received 602 reports of discrimination against Muslims in 2002, a rise of 15 per cent over the previous year.

In addition, there had been a hike in “Islamaphobic rhetoric”, particularly after Sept. 11 when hijackers linked to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden rammed passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, killing some 3,000 people. Fifteen of the 19 suspected hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department questioned and detained hundreds of Arab immigrants around the United States, particularly for immigration violations.

“Along with an increase in the number of bias-related incidents and experiences, we have also witnessed the negative results produced by government policies that target ordinary Americans based on religion, ethnicity or national origin,” said CAIR Research Director Mohamed Nimer.

“It is this guilt by association that has created a sense of siege in the American-Muslim community,” he added.

In the first days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration made a point of reaching out to Muslims in a bid to prevent a backlash against that community.

“However, since that initial period of support a number of government policies have singled out Muslim individuals and organizations,” the report said.

The council said the Justice Department continued to act “in the name of combating terrorism when in fact they have targeted broadly Arabs and Muslims” in this country.

The Sept. 11 investigation dragnet in 2002 included special registration requirements that singled out students and visitors from Muslim-majority countries.

Citing examples, it said three Muslim charities had effectively been shut down since December 2001 and were now locked in legal battles against the government.

The report also highlighted FBI hate crime statistics and said the agency’s 2002 annual report said attacks on people, institutions and businesses identified with the Islamic faith increased from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001.

The report detailed “police profile incidents” where Muslims were questioned while doing mundane activities such as walking on public roads or shopping in malls.

Some Islamic centres and Muslim groups reported violent attacks. In Florida, a man rammed his truck into the Islamic Center of Tallahassee on March 25, 2002, while in Andover, Massachusetts, a new school bus for the Islamic Academy of Peace was torched.—Reuters