Press Action ::: 'Highly unlikely to have any link'

Friday, December 20, 2002

'Highly unlikely to have any link'

By Tanweer Akram

Dear Editor:

I read Andrew Gumbel’s report, “California orders mass arrests of Muslim foreigners,” in the Independent (December 20, 2002) with interest. In his report, Mr. Gumbel points out correctly that “many of the detainees came from Los Angeles’ large Iranian Jewish population.” He then goes to say that they “are highly unlikely to have any link to militant Islamic guerrilla groups” and indirectly implies that it is kosher to have arrested the Iranian Muslim immigrants! It is not. Religion has nothing to do with one’s likelihood of belonging to terrorist organization(s).

If one does an elementary survey of Israeli settlers in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, one can alas find many Israeli Jews who are engaged in illegal occupation, rampant terrorism and violence. Anyone who believes that Muslims have a higher propensity to join terrorist organization than, say, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews or men and women of other faiths, or people of no religious faith have no empirical knowledge of the world.

Neither Muslim Iranians nor Jewish Iranians ought to be detained and mistreated by the authorities. The important thing to realize is that the U.S. authorities’ actions have nothing to do with terrorism. It is outrageous to harass Iranians and other immigrants from predominantly Muslim and Arab countries. Let’s not forget that many of those detained, whether Jewish or Muslim, came from Iran and other countries to the USA to escape persecution and seek a better life. It is a profound tragedy to see them meted with such bad treatment. It is worthy of a banana republic.

Sincerely,

Tanweer Akram

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