Fear of Islam on Rise in US, Says CAIR Report
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News
WASHINGTON — A prominent US Islamic civil rights group has released a study showing a significant increase in the total number of complaints of anti-Muslim bias in the United States between 2004 and 2005. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations report blamed the trend of anti-Muslim bias including hate crimes, discrimination, and harassment on lingering animosity toward Muslims and a growing use of anti-Muslim rhetoric by some political, religious and media figures.
The organization said the increase is due to the lingering impact of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, increased awareness of civil rights issues in the Muslim community and what the group says is a general increase in anti-Muslim sentiment in American society.
According to the study, called “Presumption of Guilt,” that total is a 25.1 percent increase over the preceding year’s total of 1,972 cases. One of the most significant increases is in the category dealing with government agencies, which rose sharply from 19.22 percent of total reports in 2005 to 36.32 percent in 2006. This increase, said CAIR, was due primarily to the number of cases related to immigration issues such as citizenship and naturalization delays.
Nine states and the District of Columbia accounted for almost 81 percent of all civil rights complaints to CAIR in 2006.
They include (in descending order):
California (29 percent),
Illinois (13 percent),
District of Columbia (7 percent),
Florida (7 percent),
Texas (6 percent),
New York (5 percent),
Virginia (4 percent),
Michigan (3 percent),
New Jersey (3 percent) and
Ohio (3 percent).
In addition, the number of incidents reportedly involving some form of police or law-enforcement abuse, such as unreasonable arrests, detentions, and searches, rose sharply in 2004, constituting more than one-fourth of all cases of abuse or discrimination, according to the report.
But CAIR’s Communication Director Ibrahim Hooper praised what he called “the responsiveness” of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, to reports of hate crimes against Muslim Americans which encouraged more victims to come forward.
“Every time we referred a hate crime to the FBI, it’s been investigated thoroughly and professionally,” he said. The report, however, called on the FBI to act more proactively rather than relying on groups like CAIR to report incidents.
“These disturbing figures come as no surprise given growing Islamophobic sentiments and a general misperception of Islam and Muslims,” said CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar, who wrote the 62-page report.
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