By Len Patel
AsAmNews Correspondent
A new report released this morning entitled The Empowerment of Hate reveals a more than 50 percent increase in anti-Muslim bias incidents in 2016 over the previous year.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations held a news conference this morning to discuss more details.
In 2016, there were 2213 anti-bias incidents against Muslims were reported or documented by CAIR.
That’s a 57 percent increase from 2015 (1409) and a continuation of a upward trend dating back to 2014 when there were 1341 incidents.
The CAIR investigation also found a similar spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes during the same period.
Hate crimes spiked 44 percent from 2015 (180) to 2016 (260). There were 38 hate crimes documented in 2014.
The biggest triggers for these incidents were ethnicity and national origin. That’s followed by headscarves or niqabs worn by Muslim women.
“The Trump administration needs to walk back the toxic rhetoric we saw on the campaign trail,” said Corey Saylor, CAIR Spokesperson.
“This report shows not only that anti-Muslim bias incidents have increased sharply, but also that there is a disturbing trend toward the increasing use of violence against American Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim.”
CAIR stresssed the rise in prejudice they documented affects a number of minority and religious communities and urged the administration to address all sorts of prejudice.
CAIR also called out the FBI for putting what it considered an unwarranted emphasis on questioning members of the Muslim community for information about terrorism. It said a similar emphasis hasn’t been placed on Trump supporters who may express hateful messages.
If you are aware of any hate crimes, you are urged to report it to the Documenting Hate Project, a joint effort by the non-profit investigative journalism group Pro-Publica and New American Media, a coalition of 3,000 ethnic news organizations.
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