Muslim community fears a backlash
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, September 12, 2001
By Warren Cornwall and Scott North
Herald Writers
Everett Muslim families held their collective breaths Wednesday, fearing reprisals for the terror attacks on the East Coast. At the same time, local residents offered their support to Muslims in Lynnwood, where a mosque was vandalized.
As people wrestled with the emotional fallout of the attacks, four Iraqi families said they were staying out of public places and intently watching television, grieving for the tragedy and worrying about their own safety.
Al-Sheblawy Taleb didn’t send his kids to school Wednesday.
Instead, the 37-year-old gas station cashier kept his five school-age children inside his north Everett apartment, fearing their Arab heritage could make them targets.
"We’re scared, and we thought some guys hurt them," Taleb said as a television in his living room aired footage of an airliner slamming into a World Trade Center tower.
Everett resident Imad Turfy, who fled Iraq in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, said his wife didn’t leave the house Tuesday or Wednesday. The hair-covering scarf she and other Muslim women traditionally wear in public might have made her a target, he said.
Turfy said he stayed up most of Tuesday night with a phone in his hand, prepared to call 911 if his home was attacked.
Isolated incidents have been reported.
A Lynnwood mosque’s sign was vandalized with black paint Tuesday, and the mosque’s voice mail was filled with angry and menacing messages in the hours following the attack.
Van Dinh-Kuno, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Forum of Snohomish County, said she heard reports that some Arab American students were harassed at Everett High School Wednesday. Everett School District officials said they had no reports of a problem at the school.
While the families of Iraqi descent feared anger toward them, they were eager to express their solidarity with others horrified by the attacks.
"Me and my family, all of the Iraqis here, we feel sorry about what happened. America is our home," Turfy said.
Meanwhile, people rallied to support the Dar Alarqam Mosque in Lynnwood. A mosque board member said Wednesday the voice mail was filled with about 50 messages of support and apologies for the vandalism.
Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart said he’s sent a memo to all of his deputies, encouraging them to be alert and fair.
"We are worried about backlash," he said. "We protect everybody."
Area police are looking into allegations from a Hispanic man from Mount Vernon that a police officer stopped the motor home he was riding in Tuesday along I-5 in Everett because the officer thought the dark-skinned occupants looked Arabic. Police said they have no record of the incident.
You can call Herald Writer Warren Cornwall at 425-339-3463 or send e-mail to cornwall@heraldnet.com.
