SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 28: A new national poll found that Pakistani Americans reported higher levels of discrimination and government targeting than Americans of Arab descent.

The poll was conducted by Florida-based Bendixen & Associates for the Amnesty International and New California Media.

About 31 per cent of Pakistani Americans experienced discrimination in their schools, workplaces or neighbourhood over the past three years. Twenty-one per cent of the Arab Americans made the claim.

When it came to profiling, 16 per cent of the Pakistani Americans said they had been mistreated or targeted by government officials because of their background, compared with 11 per cent of the Arab Americans.

Asked who did the profiling, 63 per cent of the Pakistani Americans said it was local police. Among the Arab Americans, 36 per cent said that they had been targeted by airport security, and 21 per cent answered that they had been targeted by the police.

The chief of the polling company, Sergio Bendixen, said one reason why Pakistanis reported higher levels of profiling by the police officers may be because they, in general, tend to have darker skin than the Arab Americans, and therefore may raise the suspicions of some people in the law-enforcement agencies.

Others said that religion may be a factor. The vast majority of the Pakistani Americans are Muslims, while at least half of the Arab-American population is Christian, experts say.

"I think it has more to do with faith rather than ethnicity," said Haaris Ahmad, an attorney of the Pakistani descent, who is a board member of the Michigan chapter of the Council of American Islamic Relations.