Since Sept. 11, monitoring groups around the country have received several hundred complaints alleging crimes apparently motivated by bias and hate. A shooting rampage in Mesa, Arizona, left one Sikh man dead, with additional shots fired at a Lebanese clerk and the home of an Afghan family. An Egyptian-American grocer was shot and killed near his store in San Gabriel, California and a storeowner from Pakistan was shot dead in Dallas, Texas. A gasoline bomb was thrown into the home of a Sikh family in California.

Beatings and other violent assaults were reported across the country, as were death and bomb threats. Mosques and Sikh temples have been shot at, vandalized, and defaced, and bricks were thrown through the window of an Islamic bookstore in Virginia. At several U.S. universities, foreign students from the Middle East and South Asia have been targeted for attacks, and some have chosen to leave the country because they feared additional attacks. Throughout the country affected community members have been afraid to leave their homes, go to work or wear traditional clothing for fear of possible hate crimes against them.

Human Rights Watch commends U.S. President George Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and other officials who have called on the public to reject national or religious stereotyping that would blame whole communities for the appalling deeds of a few - deeds, in fact, whose victims included members of some of the same religious, ethnic and national minorities now being injured by retaliation.

During President Bush's visit to the Islamic Center in Washington D.C. on September 17, he stated, "those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior." Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has repeatedly emphasized that individuals should not be singled out for any type of harassment in retaliation for the World Trade Center attack.

In these painful times, the values of tolerance and respect for each other and the rule of law are all the more crucial. Urgent measures must be taken to counteract and prevent xenophobic and racist attacks against migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Human Rights Watch calls on public officials as well as civic and community leaders to act decisively and creatively during the coming months to affirm those values and to prevent further acts of retaliation. We urge them to reach out to Muslim, Arab-American and other communities vulnerable to reprisal and hate, and to condemn attacks against them. We also call on law enforcement officials to provide enhanced protection for targeted individuals and groups, and their homes, places of business, and houses of worship; to vigorously investigate any reports of criminal behavior against them; and to hold accountable those found responsible.

The terrible events of September 11 constituted not only an attack on people and property - they were an attack as well on the very principles of human rights. As the nation forges its individual and collective response to this outrage, it must uphold those cherished principles. Anger at the heinousness of the September 11 attacks is understandable. But that anger cannot justify vengeful and lawless violence against the innocent.