Japanese, Muslim American communities call for protection of rights+

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 20 Kyodo -
Japanese and Muslim American communities called Saturday for the protection of
all Americans' civil rights as they recalled the treatment of Japanese
Americans during World War II and the hostility faced by Muslim Americans since
the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States.
At an event at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles,
participants adopted a resolution to ''stand up for the civil liberties and
rights of all Americans.''
Saturday was the 69th anniversary of the signing by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt of an executive order that led to the internment of around 120,000
Japanese Americans.
Keynote speaker Norman Mineta, who was transportation secretary at the time of
the September 2001 attacks, recalled his experience in 1942 when he first saw
the posters notifying Japanese Americans that they would be sent to internment
camps.
''They were not even willing to acknowledge that we were citizens of the United
States,'' he said, noting that terrorists and Muslims should not be seen as
identical.
Another keynote speaker, Imam Hamza Perez, a Muslim American from Pittsburgh,
recounted his post-9/11 experiences, including being followed by Federal Bureau
of Investigation agents at his workplace and having his mosque in Pittsburgh
raided at gunpoint during a prayer service.
''It made me think about myself as an American and about what my rights are,''
he said. ''We should learn from each other's struggles, and I think the Muslim
community has so much to learn from the bravery and the hearts of the Japanese
American people.''
==Kyodo
2011-02-20 17:40:34