(Image: graph from The Bias Brief/CAIR)

Harun Nasrullah

A total of 10,015 anti-Muslim incidents have been recorded by America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy body since 2014.

The report by Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released on September 16 chronicles incidents from January 2014 through to June of this year. The Bias Brief illustrates a steady increase in the number of the incidents but saw an initial hike after Donald Trump entered the presidential election race in 2015.

‘Not only did the number of bias incidents increase, but the violent nature of the incidents also jumped,’ reads the report. ‘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.’

CAIR chapters reported 2,783 incidents that involved Federal Government agencies. In 2016, anti-Muslim incidents numbered 2,213, an increase of 65 per cent from 2014 levels or 1,341 incidents.

The highest spike in bias incidents occurred in 2017 with 2,599. ‘This can be attributed to the Muslim Ban Executive Order, which was signed within the first 10 days of the Trump presidency,’ it said. In the first half of this year, CAIR recorded 759 anti-Muslim bias incidents. The report identifies the most frequent type of abuse as harassment, after employment discrimination, bullying, intimidating, among others.

‘The overall trend in federal agency-instigated incidents demonstrates that the FBI is the most common type of 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,’ said the report.
In addition, CAIR recorded 506 anti-mosque incidents, including damage, destruction and vandalism to property.