WASHINGTON, (Arab American News)- Harassment of Arab-Americans in southeast Michigan is escalating into a potentially dangerous issue, authorities said. (Read photo caption below)
The Arab American News told Local 4 that it has received numerous threats since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington Tuesday. Callers have threatened violence against members of the local Arab-American communities.The Maya Islamic School in Dearborn was closed for a third day Thursday because of bomb threats.
Community leaders were immediately concerned about possible incidents of violence after similar fallout after the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell identified connected alleged terrorist leader Osama bin Laden as the central suspect in the attack. Dearborn has the largest concentration of Arabs in the world, outside of the Middle East, and is the core of the region's Arab-American community of about 300,000.
The state of California's Arab-American population is larger, but metro Detroit has a denser concentration.
Dearborn Mayor Michael Guido told Local First News Tuesday that the city has doubled police patrols, and that residents have remained calm.
Arab-Americans paint a slightly different picture.
One man was reportedly assaulted Tuesday, after a confrontation with two men, Local First News reported. Racial tensions may have played a role in the attack.
Wednesday night, the front window of the Islamic Center of Detroit near Wayne State University was smashed.
The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services has been the target of bomb threats, and a flood of harassing e-mails, Local First News reported. Known as ACCESS, the Dearborn agency is the largest social service organization for Arab Americans in the nation.
The Wayne County Sheriff's Department is investigating threats against the agency, Local First News reports.
The Arab-American Community Center, a Dearborn-based civic and political group, released a statement denouncing the attacks and pledging their community's support.
"We are in the midst of a national nightmare of unimaginable proportions. Arab-Americans like all Americans are transfixed by this tragedy. We have family and friends who worked in the World Trade Center and for the federal government. We mourn for those who lost their lives and those who were injured," center officials said
PHOTO CAPTION:
Former President George Bush urged Americans on September 13, 2001 to resist an indiscriminate backlash against Arab Americans and Muslims following the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "We must guard against painting with such a broad brush that we cause innocent Arab Americans or Islamic believers anywhere to come under unfair attack,' the father of the current president said in a statement released through his office in Houston. Bush is seen during a visit to Japan in this May 29 file photo (Yoshikazu Tsuno/Pool via Reuters)