Arab-Americans Upset Over Questioning by FBI : Mideast: Many fear interviews on terrorism are just the beginning of harassment because of gulf crisis.

California’s Arab-American community is reacting with outrage and apprehension to FBI interviews of businessmen and community leaders asking if they have heard about terrorist plans here in the event of a Mideast war.

Some community leaders even say they fear the interviews are the first step on a road that eventually could lead to the kind of internment experienced by Japanese-Americans in World War II.

The regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Nazir Bayda, who was among those interviewed, said he was shocked when he was asked in Los Angeles this week whether anyone he knew had pro-Iraqi views and might be inclined to commit terrorist acts.

Bayda said he had told the agents “there was no way any Arab-American or any Arab-American organization would know of anyone” planning violence, and had refused to discuss his members’ political views.

Since sending the agents away Monday, he has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union for support and is asking for meetings with Lawrence G. Lawler, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, and Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates to protest the interviews.

Ahmed Nassef, a former president of the Muslim Student Assn. of UCLA and now a spokesman for the Los Angeles Coalition Against U.S. Intervention in the Middle East, said, “We don’t even have a war yet, and we’re already receiving this form of harassment. The implications are clear.

“If we do have a war, I do think it will increase further,” he said. “It brings back memories of the Japanese-American internments of World War II. It tells people of Arab and Muslim descent that if they speak out, they run the risk of being interned, of being identified with terrorists.”

An FBI spokesman in Washington said the purpose of what he termed “a few hundred” interviews nationwide has been misconstrued.

“The interviews are non-confrontational,” said Nestor Michnyak. “The agents are going to the doors of the Arab-American population and they’re trying to assess, get a little guidance or information about any threats that may have occurred, any incidents that they know of, to help us to prevent any possible terrorist operation.”

Michnyak, asked whether internments were possible, said the FBI had nothing of that sort in mind: “Not at all, definitely not.”

Most Arab-Americans contacted by The Times expressed concern about the interviews, some saying they worry the questioning may only be the beginning of a long process of harassment.

“To have an FBI agent come to your door and start asking you questions is a very intimidating thing,” said Carol El-Shaieb, president of the Arab American Democratic Club of Santa Clara County, who was not interviewed by the FBI but said she knew people who were.

“We have not been a source of terrorist activities,” El-Shaieb said. “There is no reason for anyone to suspect us of that . . . I view this as an attempt to intimidate Arab-Americans from participating in the peace activities that have been organized against the war.”

One person contacted did not object to the interviews. Edward Azzam, chairman of the Arab Community Center in Los Angeles, said he had been interviewed unexpectedly at his Gardena home this week, but had offered the agent tea and found his questions very general.

“He asked me if there was any harassment going on against the Arabs in the area,” Azzam recalled. “And he wanted to know if there had been any trouble at the center and if I knew of anyone there who could cause any problems. I told him I had no knowledge of anybody like that.”

Azzam said that when he told the agent that his center had a series of events planned at which the Middle East and Iraq would be discussed, the agent had “asked if he could come by and I told him I would be happy to have him.”

But such a view apparently is an exception.

“True, they claim they’re reaching out to us and letting us know that they are there in case there is any Arab-bashing,” said Victor Ajluny, a vice president of the Silicon Valley Congress of Arab-Americans. “But then they move on to questions about terrorists we might know and about what our friends think.

“They are leaving the impression with the American people that we are terrorists, we know terrorists, we condone terrorists or we associate with terrorists, and that leaves us open to more Arab-bashing than ever. It leaves us open to the possibility that groups who may want to make us look bad can go out and commit acts that will be blamed on us. It is creating an environment in which Arab-Americans are terrified.”

Casey Kasem, a Los Angeles disc jockey who often speaks on behalf of the Arab-American community, agreed with Ajluny. “When Arab-Americans become suspect, then Arab-Americans tend to want to carry a low profile and not speak out on issues they believe strongly in,” he said.

“The interviews are thus impeding our First Amendment rights,” he said. “And it comes when the FBI knows that there has never been an incident of terrorism against this country by Arab-Americans, but there has been case after case of violence against Arab-Americans, and one murder, Alex Odeh.”

Odeh, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s first regional director on the West Coast, was murdered in 1985. No one has been apprehended, but investigators believe Jewish militants were responsible.

Already, said Simon Mikael of San Diego, regional counsel for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the FBI interviews have caused the committee problems with its membership.

“This type of publicity will stop our people from contacting us for fear that what they say may expose them to FBI attention,” he said. “I think the damage has already been done to our reputation and to our integrity as an independent political and service organization.”

Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, said Friday that her organization will aid the anti-discrimination organization in protesting the FBI interviews.

“Any visit by an FBI agent has a chilling effect,” she said. “It has an effect on one’s employees, friends and neighbors. It adds to the feeling that all Arabs are suspect, and it’s wrong. The government does not have the right to inquire into people’s political views.”

Suad Cano, a Los Angeles resident and Arab-American community leader for 25 years, said: “It’s just not the time for this. The memories of the previous interference with the Japanese are very fresh in people’s minds.

“It’s not American, that’s all, because we consider ourselves very American. It’s very sad to have to worry about things like that in this country. In another country, we might expect it, but not here.”