At the Kuwait Embassy in Washington, Tamara Alfson spent yesterday counseling frightened Kuwaiti students attending U.S. schools. One student was told, "You should all die," Alfson said.
A Huntington Station man who screamed that he was "doing this for my country" was arrested last night after trying to run down a Pakistani woman with his car, Suffolk police said. The incident, one of several on Long Island that authorities and victims attributed to a backlash of hatred generated by Tuesday's terrorist attacks, occurred at Walt Whitman Mall in South Huntington.
A 7-Eleven spokesperson said that an unidentified man entered the store around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, made threatening remarks to the store employee on the overnight shift, then left the scene. The performance was recorded on videotape, which was turned over to Lower Merion Township police yesterday. Lower Merion police said they could not provide any details because the incident was under investigation. But Philadelphia Police Department spokeswoman, Susan Slawson, confirmed that two Philadelphia officers were under investigation. “I am confirming there was an incident that took place with two Philadelphia police officers,” Slawson said. “We are waiting for the Lower Merion police to complete their investigation.” The manager of the 7-Eleven, Affan Hashmi, said he is a native of Pakistan who came to the United States 20 years ago and is now a U.S. citizen.
In Palos Heights, [a suburb of Chicago] a Worth man was charged with a hate crime after he allegedly used a 2-foot machete to attack a gas station attendant he thought was of Arab descent, police said.
Vandals threw a bag of blood on the doorstep of a San Francisco immigration center that serves Arabs. A Pacifica man's car -- and its "Free Palestine" sticker -- was vandalized. And police were checking a report that a Palestinian boy was beaten up in San Francisco.
...some local Muslims already have reported receiving threats over the phone and by e-mail. Hazim Barakat, owner of Old Town Islamic Bookstore, said two bricks had been thrown through the store's front windows Tuesday night. One was wrapped with a note scrawled, "Death to Arab Murderers," Barakat said.
Members of a joint terrorism task force arrived this morning to help Denton fire marshals and police after someone threw a Molotov Cocktail at the Islamic Society of Denton mosque. Fire Marshal Rick Jones said at the scene this morning that investigators from the ATF and FBI are assisting. It is too early to say if the arson attempt is retaliation for the act of war against the United States, he said. [...] Several North Texas mosques received threatening phone calls. Officials at two Muslim schools in Arlington decided to stay closed for the rest of the week. Members of the Islamic Center of Irving and the Madinah Masjid in Carrollton cleaned up debris from windows that were shot out overnight.
If you thought this week couldn't get worse ... you were wrong. Only now we're doing it to ourselves.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!