United U.S. Muslims To Vote Against Bush Re-election

Representatives of the four leading U.S. Muslim advocacy groups have begun voter registration drives at mosques and Islamic centers across the nation in hopes of ensuring a strong turnout in the 2004 presidential elections.

The message is to reflect widespread "dissatisfaction" in the Muslim American community with the Bush administration’s treatment of Arab and Muslim Americans since the September 11 attacks, Nihad Awad, CAIR Executive Director was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.

"Feelings are running strongly against Bush in the community … We feel that civil liberties have deteriorated in this country," he stressed.

Among the policies that have alienated Muslims are those allowing racial profiling of Arab and Muslim men, the use of secret evidence in cases said to touch on national security, and the detention and deportation of many Arab and Muslim nationals without the right to legal representation.

Further to their outrage, Bush appointed in August Daniel Pipes, an outspoken anti-Muslim scholar, to the board of the government-funded U.S. Institute of Peace.

"Such an appointment, along with other actions helping discrimination against Muslim and Arab Americans could lead Bush to lose that support base in the coming presidential elections," Laila Al-Qatami of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) told.
She warned that unlike the 2000 elections in which Arabs and Muslim Americans voted overwhelmingly for Bush, things could not stand a repeat in the 2004 presidential elections.

"Bush should realize that such rising racism and bigotry against Arab and Muslims here would have ramifications for him."