US government agencies instigated more than a third of all anti-Muslim incidents in 2017, according to a report by The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation’s 2018 civil rights report found that 464 incidents were related to the Trump administration’s unconstitutional “Muslim Ban” executive orders.
The new report, titled “Targeted,” also shows a 17 percent increase in anti-Muslim bias incidents and a 15 percent increase in hate crimes in 2017 over the previous year.
“Not only have anti-Muslim bias incidents continued to increase, but a greater percentage of these instances have been violent in nature, targeting American children, youth and families who are Muslim or perceived to be Muslim,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.
“CAIR’s 2018 Civil Rights Report provides concrete evidence that the unconstitutional Muslim Ban resulted in more Islamophobic hate and violence,” said CAIR Research and Advocacy Coordinator Zainab Arain, author of the report. “The anti-Muslim hate incidents documented in CAIR’s report are an indictment of the Trump administration and its unconstitutional and divisive policies.”
The most frequent types of incidents documented by CAIR in 2017 involved:
- Harassment at 14 percent of cases.
- Incidents in which the complainant was inappropriately targeted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, accounting for 13 percent of cases.
- Hate crimes, including physical violence targeting individuals and damage targeting property, making up 12 percent.
- Cases in which the FBI harassed or otherwise inappropriately targeted the complainant, constituting 10 percent.
- Employment discrimination — including denial of work, being passed over for promotion, or harassment by a supervisor or other senior staff — accounting for 9 percent.
The most prevalent triggering factor of an anti-Muslim bias incident in 2017 was the victim’s ethnicity or national origin, accounting for 32 percent of the total.
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The second most frequent trigger was the perpetrator’s perception of an individual as a Muslim – irrespective of the presence or not of an identifying marker such as attire. This trigger constituted 14 percent of the total cases.
A head scarf on a woman was the trigger in 13 percent of incidents. The Muslim Ban executive orders made up the fourth most frequent trigger, at 10 percent.
