President to Visit Islamic Center

Updated: Mon, Sep 17 11:08 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Monday will visit an Islamic center to try to put an end to rising anti-Muslim sentiment in the wake of last week's attacks on New York and Washington.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush would meet with Islamic leaders and others at the center. The United States suspects radical Muslims of launching the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"The president feels very strongly the importance of all leaders across America sending a message that as Americans, Muslim Americans love their flag too," Fleischer said.

Police in Dallas are investigating whether the weekend slaying of a Pakistani grocer was part of a string of backlash attacks against Muslims and Arab-Americans.

An Indian man running a gas station in Arizona was shot and killed on Saturday, prompting the Indian government to urge the United States to take steps to protect Sikhs, members of a religion based in northern India, in the United States.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (UCCR) Monday said it had directed its national complaint line to solicit and catalog discrimination complaints from Muslims and Arabs, and to host forums on tolerance throughout the country.

"As the search for those merciless individuals who perpetrated the horrendous acts continues, we must be mindful that we as a nation do not unfairly single out any religious or ethnic communities," said UCCR Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry.

"All Americans, regardless of race, creed, or culture, were deeply affected by the unprecedented atrocities," she said.

The hotline number is 800-552-6843.

Bush and other top U.S. leaders have repeatedly urged Americans not to vent their anger over Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington against fellow Americans.

The House of Representatives Saturday unanimously approved a non-binding resolution condemning acts of "bigotry and violence" against Arab-Americans, Muslims and South Asians living in this country.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it has received reports of several hundred incidents of anti-Muslim harassment, threats and discrimination in the past week as investigators have focused on Saudi-born exile Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda militant organization.

But a new Reuters/Zogby poll showed a majority of Americans expressing favorable views of Arab or Muslim Americans. Only 8 percent said they considered the United States to be at war with Islam as a whole.

Eighty-four percent said the enemy was "a small group of terrorists who may be Muslim."

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee raised specific concerns about violence against Sikhs in the United States with President Bush in a 10-minute telephone call late Sunday.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001