Locke reassures Muslims

Locke reassures Muslims

'You are not alone,' he says

Tuesday, October 2, 2001

By GORDY HOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Gov. Gary Locke paid a visit to Seattle's Idriss Mosque yesterday with a simple message: "You are not alone."

Locke's appearance followed reports of threats or violence against Muslims -- or those mistakenly believed to be Muslims -- around the country after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast.


	During a visit to the Idriss Mosque in Seattle, Gov. Gary Locke told worshippers, "We must stand together. There is no room for discrimination." Renee C. Byer / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

Two days after the attacks, a 53-year-old Snohomish man threatened two Idriss Mosque worshippers with a gun and dosed two cars with gasoline before he crashed his own car attempting to escape. He was arrested and later charged with violating the victims' civil rights.

"I have no intent of standing before you as governor of a divided state," said Locke, who was introduced as the first Washington governor to visit a Muslim place of worship. "We must stand together. There is no room for discrimination."

In pressing his message to a sparse gathering of Idriss members yesterday, the governor also took aim at those who would stereotype Muslims as violent because of the terrorist acts.

Locke picked up that theme later outside the mosque.

"We don't blame all Christians for the acts of Hitler, nor all Catholics for the acts of Mussolini," he said, referring to the German and Italian dictators who launched World War II in Europe.

As Washington state's first Asian American governor, Locke expressed hope that national officials "had surely learned the lessons of the past."

He recalled that after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, thousands of Japanese American families were forced from their West Coast homes and transported to inland internment camps.

Locke praised the many faces of America and the right of its citizens to associate freely, to visit each others' places of worship, to learn from their differences. "Reach out," he said. "Celebrate the spiritual and cultural mosaic that is America."

P-I reporter Gordy Holt can be reached at 206-448-8156 or gordyholt@seattlepi.com

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