The Muslim Communities in NYC Project of Columbia University, supported by the Ford Foundation, urges in the strongest terms that the civic, political, and religious leadership of New York City continue to condemn any and all violence or threats of violence against persons or property based on race, ethnicity, country of origin, or religion. This appeal comes amid the alarming number of reports from across the United States of incidents of violence directed against property and individuals who are Muslim or of Arab, Middle Eastern, or South Asian descent.

The Muslim Communities in NYC Project applauds our nation's highest national and local political leaders, including President George W. Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for having so quickly denounced these unfortunate incidents. On September 15th, the United States Congress unanimously passed a resolution condemning bigotry and violence against Arab-Americans, American Muslims, and Americans from South Asia. It is also heartening that the news media, in both print and television, have been fair and balanced in their coverage of the rising backlash. The message is clear. Our nation's profound grief and anger can never justify blind rage that leads good people to descend, as the Attorney General said, "to the level of those who perpetrated

Tuesday's violence by targeting individuals based on race, religion, or national origin. "For the past three years, the Columbia University's Muslim Communities Project has studied the growth and development of the social, economic, and religious institutions of New York City's estimated 600,000 Muslims. Muslim New Yorkers are men, women, and children born in America or abroad, representing almost every ethnic group, including African Americans, Latinos, West Indians, Euro-Americans, East Europeans, Africans, South Asians, Indonesians, and Middle Easterners. These are people of faith who know God by the name of "Allah" and who deeply cherish the American ideals of freedom and democracy, and who share the very same hopes and aspirations for equality and prosperity that all Americans hold so dear. From the first moments after the cataclysmic attacks on the World Trade Center, Muslim New Yorkers have been among the ranks of doctors, nurses, firefighters, and law enforcement officers working at "ground zero" in the search for survivors and in the provision of relief services. Muslim New Yorkers are among the thousands who have been injured, reported missing, killed.

The utterly despicable and barbaric attack against innocent human beings on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was an attack on all New Yorkers, on all Americans, and indeed on all of humanity. Our profound feelings of grief and outrage will be long lasting. But we must, with unconquerable resolve, never permit these feelings to undermine the rule of law and respect for civil society which terrorism seeks to destroy.