Muslims living in the United States were the target of 602 alleged incidents of discrimination, harassment and violence in 2002, a 15 per cent increase over the previous year, according to a report released in Washington.

The Council on American Islamic Relations, a Washington-based Islamic advocacy organisation, released the report titled 'Guilt by Association' on Tuesday.  It was based on calls made to the Council by Muslims.

Among the incidents, 42, or seven per cent, involved violence against people or property, 17 per cent alleged employment discrimination, 15 per cent verbal harassment, 13 per cent failure to accommodate religious practices, 12 per cent passenger profiling at airports and 12 per cent discriminatory action by government agents, including 'unreasonable arrest and detention, surveillance and search', the report said.

Mistreatment at the hands of Federal Government personnel, it added, continues to be reported in 'substantial numbers'.

The report, however, noted improvement in the area of airline passenger profiling, which dropped to 12 per cent of all incidents from the previous year's 24 per cent, and in 'unreasonable detention, search and interrogation' by law enforcement authorities, which fell to 12 per cent from 19 per cent.

The Council's executive director, Nihad Awad, told reporters that members of the Muslim community feel let down by the Bush Administration. "The government should look at the Muslim community as an ally in the war on terrorism and not blacklist it," he said.