The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has released a report which recorded a total of 10,015 “anti-Muslim bias incidents” since 2014.
According to the report, which is called “The Bias Brief,” violent acts against Muslims have also increased, and especially since Donald Trump came to power.
It states: “Not only did the number of bias incidents increase, the violent nature of the incidents also jumped. From 2014 through June of 2019, CAIR chapters across the country recorded a total of 1,164 anti-Muslim hate crimes including physical assault and property damage. Like total bias incidents, reported hate crimes against the American Muslim community spiked after the 2015 entry of Donald Trump into the presidential elections.”
The report adds: “The most frequent type of abuse, aggregated from 2014 through June of 2019, was harassment, defined as unwanted, unwelcomed and uninvited conduct which annoys, demeans, or offends the target and results in a hostile environment for the target. This was closely followed by employment discrimination.”
Some of the most shocking statistics from the report include:
- The highest spike in bias incidents occurred in 2017 with 2,599 incidents, a 94 percent jump over 2014 levels. CAIR says this can be attributed to the Muslim Ban Executive Order, which was signed within the first 10 days of the Trump presidency.
- The overall trend in federal agency-instigated incidents demonstrates that the FBI is the most common federal government agency for which American Muslims report acts of bias, accounting for almost half of the total number of cases – 1,177 total bias incidents.
- CAIR chapters recorded 506 anti-mosque incidents from 2014 through June of 2019. Of this total, the highest recorded type of incidents – at 148 – were a result of damage, destruction, or vandalism to mosque property.
CAIR National Research and Advocacy Manager Zainab Arain commented: “This report documents the prevalence and severity of the disturbing rise in the number of anti-Muslim bias incidents. While various studies have pointed to the rise in bias incidents since the 2016 presidential election, this report shows the most recent data on bias incidents targeting the American Muslim community.”
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