Civil Rights in Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims

Winner: Myers Outstanding Book Award, 2004, from the Gustavus Myers Center

Muslims and Arab-Americans are increasingly under attack as a result of the US 'war on terror' - at home, as well as abroad. Since the tragic events of September 11, Arab and Muslim Americans have faced a major assault on their civil liberties. While targeting vulnerable groups and drawing on racist stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims, these measures threaten millions of people, including immigrants, activists, trade unionists, academics, writers, and anyone who the government wishes to define as a 'threat' to national security.

The Patriot Act and new immigration laws primarily aimed at Muslims and Arabs have greatly expanded federal powers and eroded longstanding civil liberties. The US government has used its expanded powers to detain, deport, and try individuals, at times without access to lawyers or full disclosure of evidence and charges used against them.

Civil Rights in Peril seeks to expose the impact of these new governmental powers on Muslims and Arabs, as well as other groups and individuals targeted as part of the Bush administration's 'war on terror', and to show how ordinary people can resist these attacks on our fundamental rights.

This powerful anthology, edited by the well-known scholar and activist Elaine Hagopian, includes essays by Samih Farsoun, Naseer Aruri, Susan Akram, Nancy Murray, Robert Morlino and William Youmans.

About the author

Elaine C. Hagopian is Professor Emerita of Sociology, Simmons College, Boston.

Reviews

Elaine Hagopian, one of the country’s most respected analysts of Middle East affairs, has brought together a group of astute commentators, who give us a refreshingly critical view of the current demonization of Muslims and Arabs. What she and the others make clear is the deadly connection between this phenomenon and U.S. behavior in the Middle East.
--Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

The “war on terror” re-declared by the Bush administration after 9/11 has provided the rhetorical framework for foreign and domestic policies grounded in quite different commitments. These careful and informative inquiries provide much insight into some of the central issues of contemporary world affairs, at home and abroad.
--Noam Chomsky, author of Hegemony or Survival

Since September 11, U.S. media and popular culture have treated Arabs and Muslims as fanatics, terrorists, and suspects: this volume treats them as human beings. These are the forgotten victims of September 11, whose rights have been curtailed, activities monitored, and charities closed down or suppressed.
--As`ad AbuKhalil, California State University, Stanislaus

”In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has targeted Muslims and Arabs using secret evidence, secret arrests, and detentions without due process of law. These departures from our constitutional norms are sending shock waves through Arab and Muslim communities in the United States and abroad, and they are placing all Americans at risk.”
--Nancy Chang, senior litigation attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights

”What an amazing book—it gives a cogent, intelligent, and political explanation of the relationship between the repression of Muslims and Arabs domestically and U.S. empire building abroad. It increased my understanding 100 fold. Buy it, read it, and fight back!”
--Michael Ratner, president, Center for Constitutional Rights, attorney for Guantánamo detainees

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