アルジャジーラ

At the pavement cafe in central Tokyo where Samir works, small groups of gangsters often take their seats.

heir clothes, ostentatious jewellery and swagger mark them out as the "yakuza" gangsters who oversee the city's drug and sex trades, its protection rackets and extortion scams.

Yet more Japanese look at Samir with thinly veiled suspicion, even alarm, than at these underworld thugs.

Samir has dark hair and eyes as well as the aquiline features of his native Morocco. He has been granted permanent residency in Japan, has a full-time job and his daughter is half Japanese.

But still the assumption for some is that he is a terrorist.

"I used to have a beard and on one occasion a customer told me I looked like a terrorist," he said.

"If I were blond and had blue eyes, I wouldn't have any problems, but because my name is Samir and I have a beard, I'm a terrorist." He shaved the beard off shortly after the invasion of Iraq.

Passport to prejudice

Although born and raised in Morocco, Samir has dual nationality. "I always use my French passport," he says.

"If I used the Moroccan one, it would be terrible. I wouldn't be able to do anything. I've learned not to say that I'm Moroccan because that just causes problems."

Security on the Tokyo metro has
been stepped up

n estimated 200,000 Muslim immigrants presently live in Japan, as well as around 10,000 Japanese who have converted to the religion.

But their lives have become more complicated since the arrest of a group of eight men suspected of having links to an al-Qaida activist who lived in Japan.

The arrests are part of an ongoing police investigation into the activities of Lionel Dumont, 33, who was working as a used-car dealer in the city of Niigata between July 2002 and September 2003 while allegedly laundering al-Qaida money. Dumont was arrested in Germany in December.

"We know that he was in contact with people all across northern Japan, not just Niigata prefecture, but we don't know all their names or whether they are still here," said Tomio Koiwa, a spokesman for the prefectural police.

"The most important task now is to find them, and that is what we are trying to do," said Koiwa.

"We have increased security at stations and airports in the prefecture and we are calling on local residents to report to police any people who are acting unusually."