WASHINGTON, Jan 13: A Muslim advocacy group on Monday called America’s special registration programme “a shameful event” in the nation’s history and asked the US government to revoke it.

The American Muslim Council, which has filed a lawsuit against the registration along with five other Muslim advocacy groups, said the process goes against Washington’s effort to improve its relations with the Islamic world.

The Bush administration introduced the registration programme in October last year and since then has expanded it twice to include 20 mainly Muslim countries.

Pakistanis, who were added to the list on Dec 16, will register from Jan 13 to Feb 21.

In a recent meeting with Janna Evans, acting director of community programmes at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, AMC Executive Director Eric Erfan Vickers called the registration “discriminatory and un-American.”

He pointed out that the US government was prepared to grant amnesty to about three million Mexicans who are in the country illegally but had singled out Muslims for detention and deportation.