WASHINGTON — The day before releasing their latest hate crimes report, The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) received a message telling the group to go back to where they came from.

ADC Executive Director Kareem Shora read the message in full to an audience of journalists and the public Thursday.

The e-mail demonstrated the report’s findings. Discrimination against Arab Americans is still rampant.

The report documented examples of anti-Arab hatred in American institutional settings since 2003. One presenter at the press conference shared his experiences in the military.

Lance Koury, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Alabama National Guard, said he was subjected to harassment and professional discrimination from senior levels of leadership.

ADC President Mary Rose Oakar introduced Koury, calling him “one of the most patriotic people I’ve ever met.”

She said his decision to go public with the treatment was courageous. The harassment included being called “sand-nigger,” and “towelhead,” Oakar said. Other alleged offenses include a toy kept in a National Guard office that mocks Muslim religious recitations, and one high-level official having stated openly, “I hate all Muslims, their main objective is not to convert Christians, but kill them.”

Koury called it a “very hostile work environment.” He said he was disappointed that his complaints were not taken seriously by higher-ups and other offices within the National Guard.

He believes he was subjected to retaliation for complaining about what he witnessed.

Koury decided to go public with his experiences last year, after years of mistreatment.

“As time goes by, you learn to ignore it. The point comes where you have to take a stand,” he said.

President Oakar said his story is disheartening, after the decades of struggle for armed forces integration. She said the philosophy of the military’s integration efforts is that “no one should face discrimination.”

“Because he’s Arab-American, he’s been pushed to the side,” she said.

Messages seeking comment were left for Alabama National Guard spokespeople.

The document ADC released, “2003-2007 Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Arab Americans,” was a follow-up to their report documenting the backlash immediately after September 11, 2001.

The new report gives a sense of what has been happening since.

ADC has been reporting hate crimes cases since the early 1980’s.

Kareem Shora, ADC’s Executive Director, estimated that in the late 1990’s, ADC received complaints of 80-90 violent hate acts over several years. Since 2002, the group receives 120-130 per year. These include only cases of the worst kind, involving violence.

Many reported cases of discrimination occur not only in the workforce or at schools, but involve government and law enforcement officials. ADC is receiving increasing numbers of complaints about abuses stemming from the No-fly lists. Most incidents of “flying while Arab” problems arise from misapplication of procedure or screeners acting out of bias.

Shora also pointed out that “many other pieces of legislation have alienated Arab Americans.” He cited provisions in the USA Patriot Act as it was renewed by Congress.

He also said the government’s discriminatory “special registration” program, NSEERS, still remains in place even after it was suspended. The program required travelers from certain nations, nearly all of them Arab or Muslim, to be photographed, fingerprinted and questioned. This was being implemented even towards citizens and permanent residents who traveled abroad.

ADC did state appreciation for various federal agencies that have opened doors to affected communities and organizations, though Shora made clear that the authorities have failed to resolve some important cases.

Shora told a story of an Arab American who was stopped by sheriff’s deputies in Mississippi in 2004. They drew their guns, forced the man to the ground, called him a terrorist and used racial epithets repeatedly. After releasing him, they threatened him never to return. Despite complaints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice, the case remains unsolved.

He also brought up the case of Alex Odeh, a Southern California ADC director killed in an Oct.11, 1985 bombing. It is still under active investigation by the FBI.

ADC is pushing to reclassify his murder from a “domestic bombing” to a “terrorism act” under U.S. law, which would possibly give the case more urgency.

The report revealed some good news, showing that outside of spikes after high-profile events, such as bombings and attacks around the world, the “trend is declining since 9/11.”

But “We’re still hearing these stories,” Oakar said. “This is not the country we know.”

She said ADC offers sensitivity training, advocacy with the government and institutions and public education to stem hate crimes and discrimination.

“We wish we didn’t have to have a hate crimes report,” Oakar said. “Prejudice is still a problem in the United States of America.”