Federal Charges Urged after NYC Muslim Man's Alleged Beating

November 4, 2006

Author: NAHAL TOOSI

Source: Newsday

Wire Service: AP

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--biasattack1104nov04,0,4914312.story

The alleged hate-crime beating of a Pakistani man by a group of Jewish teenagers has rattled the city's Muslim community and spurred calls for a federal investigation by an advocacy group.

"It's an indication of the kind of thing that we're seeing as a growing phenomenon, tied to a sharp rise in the anti-Muslim sentiment in our society," Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said of the Brooklyn case.

Prosecutors have charged five teens with hate crimes in what they describe as a brutal beating of the 24-year-old Muslim man, Shahid Amber, last weekend.

Amber says he was eating ice cream outside a Dunkin' Donuts near his home on Sunday night when a group of 10 to 15 youth wearing yarmulkes began taunting him, calling him a "terrorist" and other disparaging and profane words. He says he tried to ignore them, but they came over, and one knocked his ice cream out of his hand.

"One of them, he spit in my face," Amber said in a phone interview Friday. "As I was cleaning my face, I noticed a punch coming at my face with brass knuckles on it."