SAN FRANCISCO, March 6: The Leadership Conference of Civil Right Education Fund (LCCREF), a leading US civil rights group has denounced the widespread racial profiling of Muslims in America and called for “national action to end the ineffective and discriminatory law enforcement practice.”

Since Sept 11, race, ethnicity and religion have become proxies for suspected terrorist activity, which in turn has become a pretext for the application of immigration laws in an unequal manner toward Arabs, South Asians, and Muslims, the LCCREF said in a special report entitled “Wrong then, wrong now: racial profiling before and after Sept 11, 2001”.

Along the way, the federal government has treated many of these individuals in a manner that shocks the conscience and would not have been tolerated before Sept 11, the report added.

The report was released to coincide with the second anniversary of a promise by President Bush to end profiling made during a speech to a joint session of Congress in February 2001.

The Bush Administration claims that its anti-terrorism efforts do not amount to racial profiling, but singling out for questioning and detention Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians and selective application of the immigration laws to nationals of Arab and Muslim countries, are practices that speak louder than words, the report pointed out.

The LCCREF report said: “In the wake of Sept 11, the United States detained hundreds — perhaps thousands — of Arabs, South Asians and Muslims on suspicion of terrorist activity. Almost none of these individuals were ultimately found to have been in any way involved in terrorism. Yet many continued to be held without being formally charged with any crime or immigration violation.”