الولايات المتحدة: نشطاء يؤكدون ارتفاع معدل استهداف المسلمين

- خبر من مصادر إنجليزية.

أكد تقرير صادر عن المنتدى العربي الأمريكي ارتفاع معدل استهداف الطلاب المسلمين من قبل البلطجية والأشقياء، وتعرضهم لعمليات اعتداء قولي وبدني متكررة؛ بما يبرهن على النمو المتزايد لمشاعر العداء للمسلمين منذ أحداث 11 سبتمبر.

وقد أشار التقرير إلى أنه رغمًا عن الجهود التي تبذل من أجل مزيد من التواصل بين المجتمع الإسلامي وغيره، إلا أن هذه الجهود تواجه صعوبة بالغة بسبب قوة موجة العداء للإسلام والتشويه المتعمد لصورة المسلمين. المصدر: شبكة الألوكة.

يرجى الإشارة إلى المصدر عند نقل الخبر - شبكة الألوكة.

الخبر من مصدره الأصلي:

Bullying targets Muslims, Arabs, say activists

"Terrorist," "towel head," "camel jockey" – those are some of the taunts that bullies have used to put down Arab, Muslim and South Asian students in what some community leaders say is a growing epidemic.

The students have become frequent targets of bullies since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with reports of name-calling, intimidation and physical violence in schools, community and civil rights leaders said Thursday at a forum about bullying. With the rise of anti-Islamic sentiment, the problem has grown worse, they said.

"When public officials and media commentators propagate these ideas, it gets into the main discourse, and schools are a ripe environment for these feelings," said Aref Assaf, president of the American Arab Forum, a Paterson-based think tank specializing in Arab and Muslim affairs.

For Shehnaz Abdeljaber, the telling moment was when her son came home with his yearbook, and it was plastered with notes from classmates – and a teacher – about blowing things up and bombs. Abdeljaber said she did not want to identify her son or hometown to protect him.

"He put his head down and said, 'I know, I know.' It was like he was telling me what had been going on all this time," said Abdeljaber, who spoke at the forum at the Passaic County Technical Instatute. The event was sponsored by the New Jersey chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and focused on bullying against students from Arab, Muslim and South Asian backgrounds.

She was not happy with the response at his middle school where the incident happened, saying the teacher only had a letter put into her file about the incident. But she said her son's high school was proactive when he was ridiculed by another student. School officials invited her to talk to faculty in her capacity as an outreach coordinator for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers.

While community leaders were happy about New Jersey's new anti-bullying law – the toughest in the country – they expressed concern that it would not be effective unless educators took bullying seriously themselves.