Muslims appeal for tolerance

By JOHN YELD and AGENCIES

New Zealand's Muslim community is being subjected to abusive phone calls in the wake of the devastating terrorist attacks in the United States.

Urgent appeals for racial tolerance have been made by local Muslim leaders.

In the US and other countries, the backlash has been severe, including attacks on Muslim schoolchildren and shots fired at an Islamic centre.

In Brisbane, stones and bottles were hurled at a bus packed with Islamic children on their way to school.

Police have stepped up patrols around the school in the suburb of Karawatha, where 250 Muslim children attend grades one to 10.

The children on the bus were reported to be "quite shaken up".

In the US, anti-Arab incidents have been mostly anonymous phone calls, bomb threats and verbal abuse and intimidation.

But in one incident in Dallas, Texas, at least six gunshots shattered windows at an Islamic centre that includes a mosque and a school.

Hardening anti-Arab attitudes and growing demands for retaliation are symbolised by racist and abusive messages posted anonymously on the internet.

One of them read: "Drop atomic bombs all over the Middle East. God bless America."

The Wellington-based Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand yesterday reported being "inundated" with calls - mostly from Muslims concerned about possible reprisals, but including some from accusers wanting to lay blame for the attacks.

The Auckland-based Islamic Information Service also received abusive calls.

There are an estimated 20,000 Muslims in New Zealand, about half of whom live in Auckland.

"I had a very stressful day yesterday [Wednesday]," said Abdullah Drury, the federation's communications officer.

He said that he was not aware of any incidents in which local Muslims were directly threatened, but an obscene message was left on the answering Machine of the Newtown Islamic Centre in Wellington.

"And I had a very agitated call from a Polish woman, but I managed to calm her down.

"Every time there's a big hoo-ha overseas, it comes back to us.

"[Alleged terrorist mastermind Osama] bin Laden doesn't take his orders from us, but we're unable to get that message across."

Federation president Dr Anwar Ghani said he was aware of abusive phone calls to local Muslims following Tuesday's attacks.

"But nothing major, really - no incidents involving anything physical.

"It's fair to say they [the community] are apprehensive, but certainly not fearful.

"New Zealanders are a pretty tolerant and understanding lot, unlike some people elsewhere."

Pointing out that Islam literally means "peace", he said the local community expressed its "total condemnation" of the attacks.

"We categorically repudiate these cowardly and vicious assaults on citizens.

"This despicable incident is an unacceptable outrage ... and we condemn it as fundamentally un-Islamic and against all the principles of our holy faith."

Elsewhere, Muslim clerics also emphasised that their faith did not condone or promote terrorist killings.

Grand Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, of the Al-Azhar in Cairo, Islam's oldest and most prominent religious institution, said: "The killing of innocent people is a despicable and heinous act that is accepted by neither religion nor human sensibility."

The Islamic Information Service, which also condemned the attacks, said it hoped that the abusive response to the local Muslim community in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing would not be repeated.

"New Zealand Muslims remembering the events immediately following [this incident] are naturally concerned for their safety as well," said spokesman Mohammad Thompson.

In the US, bomb threats were made against a leading Arab American newspaper and several Arab American charter schools, all in the Detroit area.

Threatening phone calls - including death threats, obscenities and racial slurs - were made to Muslim groups in Washington, Los Angeles and San Jose, while in Colorado, men threatened to burn down a mosque.

In Ontario, Canada, pupils attending a Muslim school were subjected to foul language and called terrorists by people angered by the attacks.

New York's Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, said that extra police would be posted in neighbourhoods with large Arab-American populations to protect them against backlash incidents.

Full coverage: Terror in America

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Emergency telephone numbers for friends and family of victims and survivors

These numbers are valid for calls from within New Zealand, but may be overloaded at the moment.

United Airlines: 0168 1800 932 8555

American Airlines: 0168 1800 245 0999

NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade: 0800 872 111

US Embassy in Wellington (recorded info): 04 472 2068

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Air NZ flight information: 0800 737-000.