WASHINGTON, June 17: A mainstream American Muslim organization has charged the US justice department of using national security as a pretext for discriminating against American Muslims and immigrants from the Middle East and Asia.

In a letter to Attorney-General John Ashcroft, Eric Erfan Vickers, executive director of the American Muslim Council, refers to the case of Jose Padilla alias Abdullah Muhajir, a US citizen, who has been declared an enemy combatant and is being held in military custody on charges of trying to make a “dirty bomb”.

Mr Erfan says it seems the justice department “has turned America’s cherished due process system into a charade by detaining an American citizen while acknowledging the evidence is insufficient to indict him, and by perpetrating a scare tactic about a ‘dirty bomb’ when it is apparent that there was no scientific or other credible evidence to warrant all this hype.”

The council’s protest also recalls the new justice department policy of authorizing the federal government to spy on mosques and political organizations and points out that its request for an interview with the attorney-general has not evoked a response so far. Since then, “even greater measures that are suppressive of traditional American rights were announced by the justice department in calling for selective and targeted fingerprinting of immigrants from Muslim and Middle and Southeast countries”.

The council says these steps point to a pattern and practice of ethnic and religious discrimination, using national security as a pretext. It has renewed its request for a meeting with the attorney-general to discuss law-enforcement issues that concern Muslims, who have a feeling that they are being unfairly discriminated against ever since the Sept 11 attacks.