U.S. religious leaders are urging "solidarity and compassion" in the face of what they describe as a "growing tide of fear and intolerance" against Muslims in that country.

Attacks on religious freedom are attacks on the First Amendment Right to freedom of religion, the leaders said at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Tuesday at a news conference organized by the Islamic Society of North America.

Islamophobia has been stoked by a Florida church's plan to burn copies of the Qur'an on Saturday — the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington — and the building of a Muslim community centre near the site of the former World Trade Center in Manhattan.

The planned Qur'an burning has drawn criticism from Muslims in the United States and overseas, with thousands of Indonesians gathering outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sunday.

"Those mainly conservative Christians who respond to their Muslim brothers and sisters — their fellow Americans — with anti-Muslim bigotry or hatred, they are openly rejecting … the First Amendment principles of religious liberty which we as evangelical Christians benefit [from] daily," Rev. Richard Cizik, of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, told reporters at Tuesday's press conference.

"And to those who would exercise derision … bigotry [and] open rejection of our fellow Americans for their religious faith — I say, 'Shame on you.'"

Jews have a special duty to speak out against intolerance, said Rabbi David Saperstein, of the Religion Action Centre of Reform Judaism.

"We have been the quintessential victims of religious persecution and discrimination throughout history," he said. "We know what it is like when people have attacked us verbally, have attacked us physically and others have remained silent. It cannot happen here in America in 2010."

In advance of the ninth anniversary of 9/11, "religious leaders denounce anti-Muslim bigotry and call for respect for America's tradition of religious liberty," said Rev. Gerald Durley, pastor of the Providence Missionary Baptist Church.