Muslims take tougher line in this US polls

Community leaders have been talking to the two major political parties and to some minor candidates for months, but have been reluctant to throw their backing to any presidential hopeful without some tangible commitments in return.

Burned by their experience in the last election cycle, when they delivered a bloc vote for the Republican Party -- one that many feel backfired on them after the terror attacks of 2001 -- the leadership has adopted a different strategy for the 2004 presidential elections.

This time they want commitments on protections for Muslim civil rights up front, and on the record.

"There is a crisis of civil rights for Muslims in this country," said Agha Saeed, chairman of the American Muslim Alliance, (AMA). "Today, Muslims and Arabs are second-class citizens in the United States."

Speaking at the annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America, Saeed said the presidential hopeful who hoped to win the Muslim bloc vote must "take a public position on principles (already) enshrined in the US constitution.

"Any person who will not take a position... will not receive our vote."

Saeed and his colleagues from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) insist they are not looking for any special treatment, merely the restoration of rights eroded by the USA Patriot Act.

Many Muslims complain that the law, introduced in 2001 in the weeks after the September 11 attacks, has been used to intimidate and harass Arab and Muslim Americans.