Anti-Arab, Anti-Muslim Attacks

By John K. Wilson

The response of Americans to the terrorist attack was both heartening and disheartening. The people who rushed to help, sometimes at the price of their own lives, are heroes. But at the same time, those who filled their hearts with hate against Arab-Americans dishonored the dead by using this violence as an excuse for bigotry. The aim of terrorism is to cause fear. And by attacking and terrifying Arab-Americans and Muslims (and those mistaken for them, such as Sikhs), all too many Americans contributed to terrorism.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it has received reports of more than 542 attacks against Arab-Americans around the country, ranging from verbal harassment to physical assaults, many of them against school children. It also received reports of dozens of mosques firebombed or vandalised. More than 200 Sikhs had reported incidents to a Sikh anti-defamation group. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are preparing Wednesday to call home thousands of their students from the US for fear of further harassment. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has set up a toll-free hot line to report hate crimes directed against Arab Americans, Muslims, South Asians, and others who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent. Call 800-552-6843 anytime.

A Washington Post poll found that 43 percent of Americans said the attacks will make them more suspicious of people they think are of Arab descent. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans believe all Arabs, including U.S. citizens, should "undergo special, more intensive security checks before boarding airplanes in the U.S." And 49 percent say all Arabs, including U.S. citizens, should have to carry a special ID card.

The following list of incidents in the week (and beyond) following the terrorist attacks comes from media accounts around the world.

ALABAMA

In Alabama, women in traditional Islamic garments were jeered and spat upon. A Middle Eastern store clerk was beaten. A Indian medical student's car was vandalized.

ALASKA

Vandals attacked an Anchorage print shop owned by an Arab American causing several hundred thousand dollars in damages.

ARIZONA

The terrorist attack on Sept. 11 led to one more death on Saturday afternoon in Mesa. A white male in a pickup truck drove into a gas station and shot and killed the Sikh owner of a Chevron station on Saturday afternoon, then 20 minutes later fired on the Lebanese clerk at a Mobil station and proceeded to shoot into the home of an Afghan family. The man arrested for the murder told police, "I'm an American. Arrest me. Let those terrorists run wild."

A Muslim student at Arizona State University was attacked. University of Arizona President Peter Likins made a statement Thursday: "I have been receiving reports that my fears of irrational retribution against members of our community are being realized in the form of death threats and harassment of Islamic students.. This behavior is a disgrace to our university and will not be tolerated."

A Vietnam veteran picketed a Tuscon mosque.

CALIFORNIA

On September 20, State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said his office was investigating 70 possible hate crimes against Muslims, Arab Americans and others that have allegedly occurred since September 11th.

An Egyptian man was found murdered Saturday night at the store he owned in San Gabriel.

In San Francisco someone left a bag filled with pig's blood on the doorstep of a community center that serves Arabs. An anonymous caller said he had left a package "for your brother Osama bin Laden."

Maha Elgenaidi, executive director of the Islamic Network Group in San Jose, reported that callers told her to "get the hell out of this country. You people have done nothing but ruin this country, and you will all die. You don't belong here. Your religion is vile and evil."

Two suspects wrote "die" on a Persian Club booth on the Pierce College campus in Woodland Hills. An altercation ensued.

While at lunch, the friend of a young Persian woman jokingly called her an Arab. A woman sitting next to them followed the pair out of the restaurant, asked the woman if she is Arab, and then punched her in the face.

In a Beverly Hils bagel store, a woman wearing a Koranic charm -- a verse from the Koran -- was attacked by another woman who noticed the necklace and said, "Look what you people have done to my people!" She was held back by a man companion. The victim called police while the assailant continued making derogatory omments. Not only did no one in the store intervene, but after the police departed, the owner apologized to the perpetrators for any inconvenience and offered to pack their lunch.

A sign was posted in the elevator of the LA Hall of Records that said "Kill all towel heads."

The president of University of California-Berkeley's Muslim Student Association said the group has received hate e-mail. They have also heard reports from Muslim and Arab American students who have received insulting hand gestures while driving. Muslim women wearing hijabs over their hair reported being harassed.

In Los Angeles, there were at least eight hate incidents following the attacks, including one in which a gun was put to a woman's face. An Antelope Valley convenience store owned by a Syrian American was shot at twice.

At Mohammad Kasmaei's Ali Baba Restaurant in Anaheim, "You can't stay in the U.S.,'' was one message. Another caller simply reeled off bitter obscenities. Three teen-agers hurled a skateboard through the window of the Sinbad Ranch market in Anaheim.

A woman wearing Muslim clothing was grocery shopping in San Gabriel when a Caucasian woman began attacking her while yelling, "America is only for white people."

In Fullerton, a Sikh ice cream truck vendor was reportedly chased out of a neighborhood by a resident wielding a baseball bat.

Pacifica resident Senam Khairie, who has a "Free Palestine" sticker on his car, said he was cut off and flipped off half a dozen times by motorists Tuesday.

A Palestinian grocer in San Francisco reported people walking by making comments like, "Go back to your country" and "We should kill you all." The San Francisco Islamic Society received threatening calls. Cars drove past the closed Granada Islamic School, some blaring horns, a few drivers shouting curses.

In Fremont, a 13-year-old student was called ``camel jockey'' and ``terrorist'' by schoolmates who hurled a rock at her in the schoolyard.

On Sunday, an M-80 exploded on the sidewalk outside the Islamic Center of San Diego. On Monday, a fire that destroyed much of an Afghan and Persian restaurant in Encino after the owner received threats to burn it down. On Monday, an Orange County judge postponed indefinitely the murder trial of an Egyptian immigrant after nearly 20 prospective jurors said they were so angry that they could not be fair to an Arab.

Bottles and rocks were thrown at an Afghan restaurant in Fremont.

At Berkeley on Thursday, Tejinder Singh was walking when two drunk guys approached him and called him "Terrorist!" and "Towelhead!"

In San Francisco, Sean Fernandes, a 26-year old Indian Catholic, was walking with a white Australian friend Saturday, when a man came up, called him a "dirty Arab," and punched him and the friend. His friend was stabbed in the ensuing brawl.

At Los Angeles International Airport, a federal official reported that people of Middle Eastern origin have been bumped from several flights in a row in "pure racial profiling."

Several Muslim women at Oakland's Laney College report being harassed on campus. They were stopped by police officers, asked to provide identification, and searched. One student's head scarf was ripped off, and a woman wearing traditional Muslim dress reported someone on campus shouted, "She's got a bomb underneath there!" Another woman on campus was subject to Anti-Arab and Anti-Muslim comments from a professor in one of her classes. She eventually fled the classroom with classmates chasing her.

A Sikh temple in West Sacramento was vandalized.

San Jose fire officials reported there have been 14 suspicious fires since Sept. 11. The fires targeted some residents of East Indian descent, who may have been mistaken for Arabs.

An Antelope Valley convenience store owned by a Syrian American was shot at twice in one week.

A Silicon Valley high school freshman was spat on at school.

A Pakistani family's house was burned down in Sacramento.(Masala.com)

Arcadia resident Adel Karas, 48, was shot point-blank at the International Market, a store he owned. The family believes Karas was targeted because he was Egyptian American mistaken for a Muslim.

A gasoline bomb was thrown through the window of a Sikh family's home, hitting a 3-year-old on the head, but not exploding.

COLORADO

A carpet layer working at the city's only mosque was confronted by four men who came in and cursed at him, then threatened to return later and burn the mosque down.

Buggie and Pinky Bajwa, Sikh Americans, awoke September 13th to find the word "Terrorists'' sprayed in red paint across their driveway and "Terrorist on board'' written on their white car.

CONNECTICUT

Two University of Connecticut students of Middle Eastern descent have decided to leave UConn and return to their home countries after encountering harassment in the aftermath of last Tuesday's terrorist attacks. Rashed Alvaabi reported his physics professor asked the class what they thought about Islamic people, and approximately five people responded: "We hate the Islamic people." Alvaabi said the professor told these students that they should not have said that and the discussion of Islamic people did not continue. Mark Wentzel, director of the department of international services and programs, said his office has received approximately five or six complaints of harassment a day since the terrorist attack, a trend which he said grows daily. On the north side of campus when people in a vehicle drove by a female who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent and shouted intimidating comments at her.

FLORIDA

Most female Muslim students decided not to go to class at the University of South Florida Thursday, fearing their head scarves would make them targets. At least three radio stations falsely reported that Muslim students were celebrating the terrorist attack.

An Ocala businessman taped a "No Muslims" sign on the window of his store, Golf USA.

Someone attempted to run Muslim woman in Brooksville off the road.

The pilot of a United Airlines flight from Tampa to Cairo arbitrarily refused to allow an Egyptian American to board.

In Tampa Bay, police found a bullet Thursday in the county's only mosque. A St. Petersburg man of Palestinian heritage found splattered paint on his truck and a threatening note that read, "You cannot live in my world. Get out of it." On the white door of a family's garage in Temple Terrace on Thursday, someone wrote "Muslims Fuck." Someone scrawled Hispanic racial slurs and Arabs Go Home Fuckers on the wall of a drive-through liquor store that is owned by a Hispanic couple, and also attempted to light a fire there.

On Tuesday, the Islamic Center of Tallahassee's entrance window was smashed and eggs and cantaloupe thrown on the walls. Three Muslim women spoken to in Tallahassee declined to report their stories of verbal harassment, fearing publicity will provoke further harassment.

An arrow was shot through the front window and into a washing machine at an Muslim-owned laundromat in Green Cove.

The Islamic Center of Northeast Florida closed its school for a week after a deluge of threatening phone calls. The mosque is also paying for an off-duty police officer to conduct daily patrols after someone drove a car onto the grounds and yelled curses about Muslims and God.

A Palestinian American in St. Petersburg had his car vandalized with paint. A threatening note was also left on the windshield.

Three Jacksonville traffic schools were closed after receiving bomb threats. The schools are owned by Arab Americans.

GEORGIA

Four men in the Atlanta area attempted to stab a Sudanese man. They said, "You killed our people in New York. We want to kill you tonight."

ILLINOIS

Unidentified men beat two Muslim women near Moraine Valley Community College the night after the terrorist attack. Two Arab boys assaulted the offenders in defense of the two students.

In the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview Wednesday night police turned back 300 people who were shouting "USA, USA" and marching on a local mosque, with 19-year-old Colin Zaremba declaring, "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have." The next night, about 500 demonstrators gathered near Oak Lawn High School, saying they had come out in the name of patriotism. One teenager on a bicycle, wrapped in an American flag, shouted, "Kill the Arabs," and others shouted insults at cars with people who appeared to be Arabic.

Three men beat a Pakistani cabdriver on East Chicago Avenue late Tuesday, and Muslims in Lake County reported vandals had spray-painted "USA" and "No Forgiveness" on a Muslim worship center in Beach Park.

A man used the blunt end of a machete to attack a Moroccan gas station attendant and was charged with a hate crime in Palos Heights.

A firebomb exploded at an Arab-American community center in Chicago.

A Muslim grade school was attacked with a Molotov cocktail.

"Kill the Arabs" graffiti was scrawled along a major street.

An Arab-American student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, reported that a girl in his English class had said "she was sure 95 per cent of Arabs were terrorists."

In Evanston, police said a Chicago taxi driver and college student, Mustapha Zemkour, was injured Monday when two men--including a Cook County corrections officer--chased him on motorcycles, then allegedly hit him in the face and yelled, "This is what you get, you mass murderer."

In Orland Park an Arab family of four said a motorist drove alongside their car and began to scream obscenities regarding about the attacks on New York and Washington. The motorist then got behind them and began swerving as if he were going to hit the family's vehicle.

One Muslim woman said she, her husband and their eight children endured a night of terror when an angry mob rose outside of their home in Oak Lawn, Ill. The woman, who asked not to be identified out of fear, said "We had people riding up and down our block shouting obscenities. 'Go home you bleeping ragheads, bleeping a-rabs, we're gonna get you.' My husband and I stayed up all night guarding the windows. My husband is of Arab descent. He gave four years of his life in the U.S. Navy ... to have some skinhead with an American flag screaming at your house." She said the family was afraid to call the police because it would single out their house, adding that other Muslim families in the neighborhood were considering whether they should leave the area Thursday evening.

A Burbank furniture store was vandalized and its window's smashed.

A Vernon Hills man was charged with battery and a hate crime after he struck a man who tried to stop him from harassing an elderly Eastern-Indian couple on a Chicago street.

In Champaign, a man attacked an Arab-American on Sunday morning outside a bar, sparking a brawl.

In Oak Lawn an 18-year-old man was charged with criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct for shouting and swearing at the crowd during a unity rally and for breaking the window of a squad car.

In Chicago Ridge, windows were broken in a Arab American-owned convenience store.

A 40-year-old man was charged with disorderly conduct after he confronted "a Mideastern Indian man" at a gas station and told him to go back to his country. When the Indian man tried to leave, the accused jumped in front of the car so it couldn't move.

A brick was thrown through a window in an Arab-owned apartment building and two carloads of people drove over the lawn, attempting to hit residents standing in the front. No one was injured.

In Chicago, three members of the Arab American Action Network were closing the office when a middle-aged man drove by and threatened them, saying "We're going to make sure you guys are going to get yours!"

An Arab American family reported that a carload of people drove by shouting racial slurs and pointing a gun at them.

A man was arrested in Chicago and charged with simple assault for threatening a man outside the Arab American Community Center.

A high school crowd chanted threats at passing cars with occupants who appeared Arab.

INDIANA

In Denton, on Wednesday, a man in a ski mask fired a high-powered assault rifle 21 times at the gas station where Hassan Awdah, a U.S. citizen born in Yemen, was working behind bullet-proof glass.

In Evansville, a neo-Nazi was arrested early on Friday after ramming his car repeatedly into a building housing the local Islamic Center and shattering two windows.

KANSAS

A Palestinian American restaurant and two schools closed after a barrage of phone calls urging retaliation against Arabs and Muslims.

An Arab college student in Kansas City reported that strangers had approached him menacingly and asked whether he knew "the ones who did it."

KENTUCKY

Two Islamic meeting places were vandalized.

A Lexington man posted a sign in a neighborhood reading, "Arabs are Murderers." He refused to remove the sign when his he neighborhood association asked him. Two Arab Americans live in the neighborhood.

An Indian student was attacked when he was mistaken for an Arab.

LOUISIANA

In Louisiana, schools in Jefferson Parish were closed on Wednesday because students of Middle Eastern origin were taunted and harassed.

U.S. Rep. John Cooksey, R-Monroe, declared that a person "wearing a diaper on his head" should be subject to more scrutiny when traveling on airlines.

MARYLAND

A Rockville rug company was set on fire during the night. The Palestinian owner rented the building to another Palestinian and an Iranian. The men reported threatening phone calls Tuesday.

F.B.I. agents who were denied access to worshipers by the imam during services at a mosque in Silver Spring began jotting down license plate numbers of cars in the parking lot.

Two adjoining businesses owned by Palestinian Americans were burned to the ground.

MASSACHUSETTS

A 20-year-old Boston University Saudi Arabian student was stabbed three times as he left a nightclub early Sunday morningby assailants who yelled "You Arab (expletive)."

In Quincy, the windows and front door of Halal Market were smashed and another, Almaeedah Market, was vandalized.

Three teens in Somerset were arrested after lobbing a firebomb onto the roof of a convenience store owned by an American citizen from India. The teens told police "they wanted to get back at the Arabs for what they did in New York." The Islamic Center of New England received several threatening calls.

In Weymouth, a man and a woman doused a pump with gas and set it on fire at a gas station owned by a man from Lebanon.

In Everett, vandals threw softballs inscribed with "God bless America" and "Freedom for all" through the window of a cafe owned by a Greek-American, apparently targeting a nearby Middle Eastern cafe.

At Boston's Logan International Airport, Arab-looking passengers were pulled off three separate flights over the weekend because of suspicious flight crews.

At MIT, Muslim Students Association spokesman Numan Waheed said students there have also been threatened, "But for every bit of hate mail, we've received so much support from the community. We're not going to let that interfere with our standing up for justice on our campus."

MICHIGAN

Windows at the Muslim Students Association at Wayne State University were broken and several businesses and schools have received bomb threats.

A 14-year-old Palestinian, Deemh Monoyidden, received death threats from fellow students at a Detroit area school.

In Dearborn, Michigan, a community with more than 30,000 people of Arabic descent, there were bomb threats against Muslim schools, and racial slurs or death threats in phone calls or e-mail messages sent to Islamic community leaders. A quarter stick of dynamite exploded outside the mosque at dawn.

Police investigated three men in Taylor, Michigan who said they were going to go to Dearborn and "kill all the Arabs."

At a gas station in Dearborn Mich., a female customer was insulted by a man driving by in a car who yelled, "Get out of America, Get out of America."

False rumors were circulating by e-mail that Arab-Americans at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Orchard Lake, Michigan celebrated after Tuesday's attack; someone printed copies of the e-mail and taped them to shopping carts outside a grocery store near the restaurant.

Arab-American and Muslim students at the University of Michigan receive e-mailed death threats, some signed by "a Christian American." Other anonymous e-mails warned "your life will be a living hell," and "this is war."

In Fair Haven, Mich., the windows of Mazen Mislmanion's family service station were shot up by vandals Wednesday night. Issam Koussan told the Detroit News that men in a car pulled into his supermarket parking lot and yelled threats and racial slurs at his customers.

In East Lansing, a single shot was fired into the home of a Muslim family who lives next door to the Islamic Center.

The windows of an Arab American family’s service station were shot up in Fair Haven.

MINNESOTA

In Minneapolis on Tuesday, Majdi Wadi, owner of the Holy Land food market, received a call at 9:45am: "You fucking Muslim people. You're all going to die today. Why don't you go back to your own country." The caller phoned back several times, and Wadi called the police.

At the University of Minnesota, the Arab Student Association received threatening messages on its answering machine Wednesday, and some Arab students have been called "terrorists" or cursed at on campus.

Three Iraqi natives were kicked off a Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis after other passengers refused to fly with them. The three were allowed to take another flight.

MISSOURI

In St. Louis, the Palestinian American owner of a market said a customer entered his store and threatened him.

A convenience store owned by a Palestinian American was firebombed.

A St. Louis mosque received threatening telephone calls.

A Palestinian-American owned restaurant and two Islamic schools closed in Kansas City after they received threatening phone calls urging retaliation against Arabs and Muslims.

NEW JERSEY

In Astoria, New Jersey, a Sikh who wears a turban for religious reasons had garbage and stones thrown at his car. And on Long Island, authorities arrested a man who made an anti-Arab threat and pointed a handgun at a gas station employee.

False rumors spread across the country that Arab-Americans had celebrated of the terrorist attacks. In one case, a New Jersey college student who lost both parents in the bombing now must also deal with the fear of being harassed because he is of Arab descent.

In New Jersey, a carload of people waving American flags told a group of teens that they would be bombed when they slept.

The president of an Arab-American civic organization in Paterson received several threatening telephone messages.

A Muslim gas station attendant in Monroe was punched in the face by a motorist

A Molotov cocktail was thrown at a Hindu temple in Matawan.

In Asbury Park, a graphic message threatening acid attacks against Muslim women was found on Thursday on an answering machine of the Masjid Mosque.

A carload of people drove by a largely Arab neighborhood yelling, "We're going to bomb you when you sleep!" 

Vandals sprayed "leave now fuckers" outside two Indian-owned businesses.

A Molotov cocktail was thrown at a Hindu temple.

NEW MEXICO

Vandals attacked businesses on Santa Fe's central Plaza for the second time in a week scrawling grafitti, smashing windows, and throwing rocks and eggs.

A mosque in Las Cruces was harassed by people in cars honking horns and threats were left on an answering machine.

NEW YORK

On Long Island, authorities arrested a man who made an anti-Arab threat and pointed a handgun at a gas station employee.

In Huntington, New York, a 75-year-old man who was drunk tried to run over a Pakistani woman in the parking lot of a shopping mall. The man then followed the woman into a store and threatened to kill her for "destroying my country."

One Sikh man in Richmond Hills, New York, was severely injured in an attack by an assailant wielding a baseball bat, and two other Sikhs were attacked with a paintball gun.

At the permanent mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations, which represents the Islamic State of Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban, death threats were common: "Every hour or so our recording device becomes full," said spokesperson Haron Amin. "The threats have said such things as `Good luck staying alive over the next week' and `Every Muslim shall be killed.'"

Friday morning at the Brooklyn Islamic Center in the Bensonhurst section, a man carrying a bottle with a "smoking wet cloth on top" approached the mosque but dropped the firebomb when he saw police nearby

After services on Friday, a man driving past the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge stopped and yelled obscenities at the Muslim men while waving an American flag. A man claiming to be an off-duty firefighter came to the front door and began cursing at the Muslims, saying they were responsible for the deaths of 12 of his firefighter friends.

On Thursday night, a group of demonstrators gathered outside of the Madina Masjid on First Avenue and 11th Street in Manhattan. The mob yelled angrily and carried a banner saying "Destroy the mosque or remove it from this place." Neighbors shouted the crowd down as the police held them back. (News Net 5:9/16)

In New York City, a motorist yelled "sand nigger" at Arabs, and passersby spat on the window of Damascus Bread and Pastry. A young man ran past an Arab-run convenience store in Brooklyn Heights, shouting "Fuck you, Arabs!"

Two veiled women pushing baby strollers were surrounded by an angry group of youths who hurled epithets at them.

A 66-year-old man from India, who follows the Sikh religion and wears a turban, was beaten Tuesday by men who mistook him for an Arab.

Early Wednesday in Manhattan, a Sikh man was attacked by three white men yelling "terrorist" at Broadway and 52nd Street.

Cab driver Jejiemder Singh, another Sikh New Yorker, said people threw bottles at his car on Tuesday.

Shortly after the terrorist attack, financial trader Amrik Singh was chased for blocks by group of men who yelled, “You better take that fucking turban off."

Rabyaah Al-Thaibani reported her uncle received a death threat from a supplier for their Brooklyn grocery store, and they kept the store closed after the terrorist attack. "He said he would kill my uncle and the whole family if we didn't watch out.

A Sikh was giving a TV interview outside a restaurant when a man pushing a baby stroller stopped and started yelling, "You Islamic mosquitoes should be killed."

The offices of a Bangladeshi newspaper in Queens were painted with anti-Muslim graffiti.

In Richmond Hills, a gurdwara was fired on with rubber bullets. An arrest was made.

The local human rights commission reports at least 3 attacks (1 Pakistani, 2 Arab) in Suffolk County.

Six to eight men shouted anti-Arab slurs and threw stones at a man in upper Manhattan.

Suffolk County authorities arrested a man who allegedly made an anti-Arab threat and pointed a handgun at a gas station employee.

In Richmond Hills, Attar Singh Bhatia was severely injured and hospitalized after being attacked with a baseball bat and shot at with a BB gun.

A pig's ear was mailed to the Afghan Mission to the UN.

An Indian girl was beaten to death in Long Island.

Shots were fired at the home of an Indo-American Stanford graduate.

A woman on her way to pick up her son from school in Brooklyn was approached and threatened by an older white male.

The Arab-American Family Support Center in Brooklyn received hundreds of calls from Arab-Americans who have been threatened.

Roula Abu Hassan reported that her health teacher at a Brooklyn high school declared in class, "Palestinian children all want to become terrorists."

Mohammed Abdur Rahman of the Islamic Center in Queens, received numerous death threats on his answering machine: "I hope you have fun with Satan and in eternal hell fire for a thousand millenniums because that is where you're going to be."

On Long Island, a market in Smithtown owned by a native of Pakistan was the target of what the police considered a probable arson attack Wednesday morning.

In Ronkonkoma, a man was arrested on suspicion of waving a pellet gun and shouting obscenities at a South Asian gas station worker.

An Islamic school was shut down after a caller threatened to harm hundreds of students in the Islamic Institute of New York: "He said he was going to paint the streets with our children's blood." Although the school was closed, it still received several threats a day.

On Wednesday, a couple yelled insults at a Lebanese-American who was desperately searching for survivors: "You should go back to your country, you fucking Arabs, we should bomb the shit out of you."

An Arab American deli owner in Ardsley was pepper-sprayed when he identified himself as an Arab.

Two girls on their way home from school in New York were approached by a group of adults and teenagers who verbally threatened and threw stones at them.

People harassed and spat at Muslims at Dawood Mosque in Brooklyn Heights.

In Rockland, a female bank teller was verbally abused by her co-workers, who asked why Muslims had to do this.

Social worker Suad Abuhasna noted, "Girls have been hit, kicked, touched in places they don't want, and threatened. They hit two women in Bay Ridge yesterday. But everyone is too scared to call the police."

Verbal harassment of Muslims and Arab-Americans was common on the streets of New York. In some cases, people who had lost friends or family in the terrorist attack were yelled at or threatened because of their appearance.

At Syracuse University, a flier was posted that declared, "An Orange a day keeps the Arabs away," which referenced an article and an editorial cartoon in The Daily Orange's Friday issue, which depicted an Arabic man clogging a pipe that represented the flow of world peace.

On Monday, a man in Washington Heights spit in the face of a man and made anti-Arab remarks.

In Ridgewood, Queens, a man threatened to kill a Jordanian newsstand worker.

In Manhattan, the Afgani-owned Chickens-R-Us had "Don't support terrorists" spray-painted on the restaurant's awning.

One student, Basel Al-ken, whose family is from Syria, was taking his mother to Wal-Mart one night this week. A man in a parked car turned a laser-pointer in her face and made a throat-slitting motion with his hand.

NORTH CAROLINA

At Duke University, junior Hazim El-Haddad said: "My friends have been telling me to stay in my room and to lock my door. I overheard stuff like 'fucking Palestinians,' and 'damn Arabs.'"

At North Carolina State University in Raleigh, a student who wore a black scarf said she had been spat upon, and many Arab students reported harassment.

Rania Masri, a national board member of Peace Action, reported: "In Raleigh, N.C.--where I live -- the local mosque received two bomb threats the day of the attack. The Islamic School in Raleigh had to close--due to fear for its students' safety. People driving by the mosque have been spewing racist statements--such as 'sand niggers go home' and 'death to you all.' Several Arab women wearing Hijab had stones thrown at them from passing cars, and have been spat on at the main university campus."

OHIO

In suburban Cleveland, Sukhwant Singh, a Sikh priest who lives at the Guru Gobind Sikh temple, awakened early Wednesday to find bottles filled with gasoline hurled in the temple's windows and flames rising.

On Monday, a 29-year-old man smashed his car through the entrance of an unoccupied Ohio mosque at 80 m.p.h., landing in a fountain.

A car was rammed into an Akron Arab-owned grocery store.

A window was shattered at a convenience store. The owner told police he had been getting phone calls threatening to burn his building down.

In Youngstown, a Sikh said someone made rude comments to him as he stood in a parking lot. A hedge outside his brother's gas station in Cortland was also set afire.

A break-in at Food City and a smashed window at the Convenient Foodmart were described in incident reports as hate crimes against Middle Eastern owners.

The president of the Islamic Society of Dayton received threatening phone calls. The callers stated "we're gonna send you people back home" and "I hope you people are happy."

An Arab American businessman's store was ransacked and anti-Arabic graffiti sprayed on the walls in red and black paint. The owner's car, parked outside, also had "anti-Arabic, pro-United States" graffiti on it.

OKLAHOMA

On September 18th Kimberly Lowe, a 21 year old full blood Creek Native American, and several Native American friends were followed and harassed by a vehicle of white males in Tulsa. The men threw items at the car and yelled "Go back to your own country!" When Lowe stopped the car and got out to confront the men, the attackers drove into her, pinned her against another vehicle, then backed up and ran over her again. Lowe was killed.

Tulsa police reported a Pakistani native was beaten by three men in a hate crime.

Motorists reportedly made obscene gestures outside the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City.

OREGON

On Sunday, near Eugene, a California woman was arrested for trying to pull the turban off the head of a Sikh man at a highway rest stop.

A man in Portland, Oregon called an NPR show to say that any Arabs who are American citizens should turn themselves in to the FBI for interrogation: "If they aren't with us, then as far as I'm concerned, they need to be exterminated as brutally as they exterminated us."

A Pakistani man had his tires slashed in a store parking lot while he was shopping.

A man was arrested for making a threatening phone call to the Islamic Cultural Center in Eugene.

PENNSYLVANIA

Looters pillaged two Arab-American grocery stores in Philadelphia.

On Sept. 19 in Meadville, a man attacked a high school student of Middle Eastern descent in the parking lot of the teen-ager's school.

Sheik Hisham Kabbani, chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America was threatened by motorists and then stopped by police on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for looking suspicious because of his robes and beard. Kabbani was returning from the memorial service at the National Cathedral, but the FBI advised him not to fly.

In the Philadelphia area, an off duty police officer pulled a gun on a Pakistani convenience store owner.

The Muslim Association of Lehigh Valley in Whitehall Township said a carload of people shouted derogatory and threatening phrases as members of the congregation left services.

Fliers reading “kill all arabs, boycott all the 7-elevens and dunkin donuts and slash all arab taxi cab” were distributed in Allentown.

A Muslim cab driver in Philadelphia told police his arm was broken when he reached back to receive his fare.

Taxi drivers who looked Middle Eastern were verbally threatened.

RHODE ISLAND

10 people were removed from an Amtrak train in Providence, R.I., on Wednesday, and held by the police and questioned for an hour and 40. Sher J. B. Singh, a telecommunications consultant, was one of three Sikh men escorted from the train at gunpoint, handcuffed and questioned about whether he had anything to do with the terrorism. The others held all appeared to be of Arab or South Asian descent, said Mr. Singh and Meera Kumar, a financial services officer at the Ford Motor Company, who was also held by the police. Those detained included a Hispanic and an African- American. "They broadcast four Arabic males, so four Arabic males is what we are looking for," Colonel Sullivan said.(September 14, 2001/New York Times)

In Ronkonkoma, a man was arrested on suspicion of waving a pellet gun and shouting obscenities at a South Asian gas station worker.

TENNESSEE

Two Arab American clinic workers received threatening phone calls. They were told to "go home and get out of our country" and called "foreign fags." Their daughter in Atlanta, GA, also received threatening phone calls.

TEXAS

In Dallas, a Pakistani man was found shot to death at his store on Saturday night, with no evidence of a robbery.

In Irving, six shots were fired into a window of the Islamic Center.

A mosque in Denton, sustained thousands of dollars of damage after an unknown assailant pitched a Molotov cocktail at the building on Thursday.

A window at the Islamic Center of Carrollton was broken by a slingshot-type device.

A San Antonio Iranian restaurant was vandalized.

A professor of Middle Eastern languages and cultures at the University of Texas was spat on by a pedestrian.

In Austin, an Arab American realtor received anonymous telephone threats ordering him to "leave this country or else!"

At the University of Texas in Austin, students wearing Islamic garb said their bags were searched by university police before they were admitted to classrooms and they were told to leave the student union because of "anti-Muslim sentiment."

In San Antonio, two Muslim girls were verbally abused at their high school.

Three bullets struck the Sahara Grocery Market in San Antonio.

A woman was sent home from work Wednesday following a meeting with her boss, who had singled her out because of her Palestinian heritage. He stated he didn't know if she would be celebrating the death of Americans in the office.

Monday night, Ashraf Khan, a 32-year-old San Antonio businessman from Pakistan, was removed from a Delta Airlines flight to Dallas before takeoff because the crew was not comfortable having him on the plane.

UTAH

At University of Utah (where a press conference by the mayor against intolerance was delayed by a bomb threat), doctoral student Farah Ramezanzadeh reported two students directed hateful statements toward her: "One person told me, 'How dare you show your face at the university.'"

After a man allegedly tried to burn down a Pakistani-owned restaurant in Salt Lake City, police increased patrols.

Three men broke into the apartment of a Puerto Rican man and beat him. Police think the men may have thought he was Middle Eastern and are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

VIRGINIA

Hazim Barakat arrived at his Islamic bookstore in Alexandria, Virginia, to find two bricks thrown through the window, with notes tied to them. One was addressed to "Arab murderers;" the other said, "You come to this country and kill. You must die as well."

A sign announcing the new home of an Islamic community center near Dulles International Airport here was defaced with profane, anti-Muslim threats. The Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church called police to the mosque four times this week and canceled prayers. An 11-year-old Muslim girl was taunted and cursed by other students.

The Muslim American Society in Alexandria was closed after receiving several telephone threats.

Someone broke into the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, a mosque near Sterling, Va., and painted obscene graffiti in the worship hall and on the outside of the building.

A Muslim taxi driver had a bottle thrown at him and was chased in a car near his home in Manassas.

The Manassas Mosque reported receiving messages on its answering machine saying, "We hope you die."

On Friday in Alexandria, Afghani-American Mustafa Nazary ended up in the hospital, after being beaten by Michael Wayne Johnson. Nazary says Johnson pulled up alongside him, asked if he was Afghan and then said, "I'm gonna kill you," following him to the car parking lot. Johnson insists that it was Nazary who uttered an incendiary threat.

A woman was charged with threatening to bomb a mosque in Hampton.

WASHINGTON

At Washington State University in Pulliam, Adly Natsheh, president of Friends of Palestine, said he spoke with several upset students who were called terrorists, told to go back to their country or heard other comments. Anita Rao, a member of the Indian Students Association, reported: "A couple of my friends were walking down the mall and some people called them 'Palestinian bitches.’"

"You will all die'' and "Get out of this country'' were among the messages left on an answering machine at an Islamic center in Bellevue. The Islamic School of Seattle suspended classes out of concern for students' safety.

A 40-year-old man stormed into a Seattle mosque on Tuesday and threatened to burn it down. Late Thursday, an armed man was arrested for trying to set fire to a mosque in Northgate and firing a gun when employees tried to stop him. The sign in front of a Lynnwood mosque was splattered with black paint.

Three white men attacked a Somalian Muslim woman with a knife Saturday in a West Seattle grocery parking lot, screaming at her and cutting the bottom of her dress with the knife.

On Sunday, two white men threatened an East-African employee of a South Seattle home-improvement store, and someone vandalized an Iranian-owned grocery in Edmonds.

In SeaTac, an Indian Sikh taxi driver was beaten up.

A prison fight broke out over Muslim slurs.

In Seattle, a turban-wearing taxi driver was verbally and physically attacked by a man who accused him of being a "butcher terrorist." The driver wasn't of Middle Eastern descent: He was from India and a Sikh.

A sign was hung from the footbridge over the West Seattle Bridge that read "Death to all Palestinians".

Police arrested a suspect for suspicion of malicious harassment after he allegedly threatened to burn down a Seattle mosque.

A Kenmore man is in jail on charges he soaked a car with gasoline in the Idriss Mosque parking lot and then fired a gun at two employees who tried to stop him.

In Seattle, a man walked into the Al-Masjid mosque wearing his shoes, which is forbidden in the worship area. When asked to leave, the man pushed the mosque's leader in the chest.

Police reported that local mosques had received abusive calls and several death threats including one that said, "We will kill you like sheep."

A mosque in Lynnwood was splattered with paint.

Snohomish County sherrif's deputies reported a man pounded and spit on a car driven by a woman of Middle Eastern descent.

WASHINGTON DC

James J. Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute in Washington, reported on a threat left on the answering machine: "Jim, you towel-head, I'll slit your throat and kill your kids."

Rippy Singh was stopped by four white men in a car who accused him of being a terrorist and said "we will bomb you."

A Sikh was leaving work when he was accosted by pedestrians who began to yell verbal expletives at him. They threatened to "get" him and bomb him in retaliation for the terrorist acts.

At Dulles International Airport, a United Airlines flight to London was delayed for four hours after a Saudi pilot requested permission to fly in the cockpit jump seat, a courtesy extended to pilots of all U.S. carriers before September 11. The United pilot refused and returned to the gate where the Saudi pilot and two other men were detained and questioned by the FBI and INS for three hours before being released.

The Islamic Center received bomb threats, causing Massachusetts Avenue to be closed off.

Two women wearing traditional religious headdress where spat upon as they rode a subway near the White House.

WISCONSIN

In Milwaukee, six threatening phone calls Tuesday forced the cancellation of classes at the Salam School at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. There were death threats directed at a Sussex family and the beating of a Sikh man the night of the attacks. In Milwaukee, a Sikh driver's cab tires were punctured and oil was poured over the vehicle the night of the attacks, and other Sikh had received threats.

WORLD

The attacks weren't limited to America. In India on Saturday, Hindu fundamentalists rioted in a Muslim area during a protest against the terrorist attacks. Two people were killed and dozens were injured during the riots.

In Brisbane, Australia on Wednesday, a school bus carrying Muslim children was pelted with stones and bottles. Vandals tried to set fire to a Lebanese church in Australia.

An Asian woman in Swindon, England was attacked by two men and beaten with a baseball bat. An Afghan taxi driver in London was left paralyzed from the neck after he was dragged from his cab and beaten up by three men who made comments about the attacks in New York. The Islamia School in Kilburn, North London had to be shut down after parents and children were threatened In Bolton, 20 worshippers, some of them children, escaped serious injury after a mosque was set alight with a petrol bomb. Bricks have been thrown at mosques in London, Manchester, Southend, Glasgow and Belfast, and the Times of London reported, "Many Muslims have been spat at and suffered verbal abuse."

In South Shields, red letters 6 feet high declared, "Avenge USA - kill a Muslim now" on a wall near a mosque. In the same town a 20-year-old Bangladeshi man suffered a broken jaw after being beaten and kicked by a gang of youths.

At a Montreal high school on Tuesday, three Muslim students were attacked by students "with family ties in New York." Giulia El-Dardiry, a McGill University anthropology student, said she was insulted on campus Tuesday and told: "You Arabs should go home. You're just terrorists." A fire was set at the entrance of the former Yunus Mosque. Five school students with Arabic-sounding names were assaulted in Oakville, Ontario, by schoolmates. In Calgary, an Islamic grade school was closed to protect 600 children. More than a dozen Muslims have received threatening phone calls at home and on the street, such as "You guys should be thrown out of here, you guys should be blown up."

Around the world, "vigilante hacking activity" by U.S. groups has disrupted Internet service to countries hackers associate with the airline hijackings.

WYOMING

Khaled Ksaibati, the faculty adviser for the Muslim Student Association at the University of Wyoming described an attack on the Muslim family at a Laramie Wal-Mart. "The people who screamed in her face wanted her to go back to her country," he said. "This is her country. She was born here." (Seattle Times/Detroit Free Press)