An organization has been launched to serve as a bridge between Muslim communities and UK policy-makers. The British Muslim Network seeks to fills a void of 17 years after successive governments failed to engage with the Muslim Council of Britain, which was founded for the same purpose.

The British Muslim Network (BMN) was launched in London when 60 people began by taking part in round-table discussions on social mobility, storytelling, Islamophobia, philanthropy, community infrastructure and health and wellbeing.

The discussions were followed by a large reception with about 300 people, speeches from government officials including the health secretary, Wes Streeting; the deputy Commons Speaker, Nusrat Ghani; faith minister Lord Khan; and a former faith minister, Baroness Warsi.

Mr. Streeting acknowledged that governments had let down Muslim communities in the past and insisted on the importance of tackling anti-Muslim hate crimes and Islamophobia.

He said it was important that “the government gets this relationship right, to acknowledge with humility that successive governments have not got this relationship right“.

He said he “acknowledged … that the Labour party hasn’t always got this right, particularly in recent years” and added that he was committed “to underscore my commitment to defending the space for Muslims across our country“.

The BMN seeks to convene expert panels to share information on the views and practices of Muslim communities to policy-makers. Its co-chairs are Akeela Ahmed and Imam Qari Asim.

Imam Asim, who leads the Makkah Mosque in Leeds and was once a government adviser on Islamophobia, told the Religion Media Centre: “It was really uplifting to see such a diverse group of people, from different faith backgrounds to civil society, to organizations, as well as the diversity of the Muslim community, being reflected in this room. We contribute so much to society but sadly we are mostly seen through the lens of extremism.

“That’s painful. We see young people feeling frustrated and alienated. They’re not feeling welcomed in their own neighborhoods. So BMN wants to bring a range of voices, to hear their perspectives and to bring their own insight to share with think tanks, policy-makers and the government. We believe those pillars of society can benefit from this young talent.”

Speaking on the policy of disengagement, Imam Asim said Muslims were not “asking for special treatment” but rather “equal citizenship”.

The launch has been plagued with comparisons to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and suspicions that it is seeking to undermine the organization, or create a split between “good” and “bad” Muslims.

However, all people affiliated with the group have insisted that is not the case. “BMN is going to be one of the voices among many other voices in this country, highlighting and showcasing the contributions, therefore it does not intend to replace any organization,” Imam Asim added.

“We believe in collaboration. Our faith encourages us to collaborate. We have been in conversation with many organizations, including the MCB. It’s about working together to defeat the defeatist mentality that is unfortunately rising in the minds of young people because of the way they’re treated in this country.”

Baroness Warsi pointed to the urgency of the work, stating that the engagement was important for democracy. “Courage is important. These times require you to be so,” she said. “We are not just talking about protecting British Muslims and creating a society where British Muslims feel like they have equal worth and value. We’re fighting to protect inclusive liberal democracies. That is where we are at now.“

Akeela Ahmed, who previously chaired the government’s working group on anti-Muslim hatred, agreed with the sentiment pointing to the “global backdrop” of the launch. “The far right is becoming more prominent again in Europe and in the UK as well,” she said. “We wanted to step up because we understand that there are huge challenges, external challenges that we all need to work to address.”

Nusrat Ghani, a Conservative MP, reflected on her own experience as she said that “earlier experiences of racism were down to the color of our skin,” whereas now “it is down to our faith”.

Professor Mike Clarke, chairman of the Together Coalition, which was set up to foster social cohesion after the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016, also backed the initiative.

“With the recent and shocking events of the riots last summer, we recognized the need to give expression to voices that need to be heard to have a diverse and inclusive society,” he told the Religion Media Centre. “We’ve been very proud to support that.”

Many commented on the energy and dynamism in the room throughout the evening, including Professor Clarke, who added: “My overwhelming sense is that there’s a lot of love and goodwill in this room, and I find that very inspiring.”

Addressing criticism about the Together Coalition’s involvement in the group’s setting up he said: “Frankly, I don’t think there are enough voices being heard. If the people here feel there is a need to create more opportunities for those voices to be heard, then it’s important to do that.”

The British Muslim Network intends to operate on the basis of the “Three C’s”: connecting, celebrating and collaborating.

• Connecting relates to “bringing people of different backgrounds together”.
• Celebrating pertains to honoring the “positivity within the British Muslim community”.
• Collaboration refers to organizations working together as well as inclusion of the “multiplicity of voices” within the demographic.

Members of the group’s advisory board include Sumayah Saadi, owner of the Sumayah modest fashion brand; Abdurahman Sayed, chief executive of London’s Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre; and Dr. Hina Shahid, who chairs the Muslim Doctors Association.

The network will include public figures from politics, media, business, entertainment and sport, as well as imams, lawyers, doctors and academics.

Some joined a panel which concluded the event including Shabna Begum, chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, and entrepreneur Jennifer Ogunyemi.

Many labelled the event an important one in British Muslim history. Mr. Streeting said: “This has to be a catalyzing moment that mobilizes grassroots communities right across the country to make sure that people feel able to be heard and genuinely listened to.

“But more than that [they must be] able to shape their communities, to shape our country and to do this together across the divides of difference and diversity uniting around what we have in common.”

Events will be held for Muslim communities to speak to each other and common concerns will be shared with the government to bring change.

Source: Religion Media Centre

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation this week to target hate crimes on the streets of New York, which includes criminalizing the forcible removal of religious clothing, including the hijab.

The legislation consists of three new laws to protect New Yorkers from hate-fuelled violence, including fighting harassment or threats against those who wear religious clothing, enhancing anti-violence education in schools and cracking down on stolen phones.

“Public safety is my top priority, and I’m committed to using every possible tool to keep New Yorkers safe,” Governor Hochul said in a statement.

“There is more to do to stop hate and prevent violence in our communities. Signing these bills today will create three new laws to help protect New Yorkers and further reduce crime.”

Removing or threatening to remove religious clothing like the hijab or kippah is now classified as aggravated harassment in the second degree and takes effect immediately.

This covers incidents including threats, verbal harassment and physical strikes motivated by one’s identity.

The law amends an existing law. It was introduced by Assembly member Nader Sayegh, a Jordanian-American Democrat, and co-sponsored by Nily Rozic, an Israeli-American Democrat and Assembly woman from Queens.

There were also no votes against the amendments.

This comes after multiple incidents over the year where individuals’ religious clothing has been threatened.

New York has seen a surge in hate crimes over the last five years, with over 1,000 reported instances in 2023, including the targeting of people in religious clothing. One incident included a man pulling off a 16-year-old’s hijab on the subway.

Following 7 October, New York police logged five instances of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the first three weeks.

New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services in December 2023 also noted a 417 percent increase in online hate speech against Muslim communities since Israel’s war started.

In April, New York City agreed to pay $17.5m to settle a lawsuit by two Muslim women who said the police violated their rights after forcing them to remove their hijabs before being photographed.

Source: The New Arab

Tell MAMA was formed in 2012 as an initiative of the community interest company Faith Matters and receives millions of pounds in public funding as the Government’s flagship agency monitoring anti-Muslim hate crimes.

But, from 2017 to 2022, the figures it has compiled are consistently lower than anti-Muslim hate crime statistics published by the Home Office based on police data – raising fundamental questions about the accuracy and value of Tell MAMA’s figures.

A Byline Times analysis comparing Crime Survey estimates with Home Office data shows that police records severely under-report anti-Muslim hate crimes in Britain by nearly 90%. This suggests that Tell MAMA’s data provides an even poorer picture – failing to capture what is likely to be many tens of thousands of incidents every year.

As anti-Muslim hatred appears to have reached epidemic levels since 2019, the Government lacks the institutional capacity to understand the scale of this national crisis.

Faith Matters did not respond directly to this newspaper’s questions.

Instead, it replied through its legal representatives, Mishcon de Reya, and published a public response. According to Mishcon de Reya, Tell MAMA’s under-reporting is entirely legitimate as the agency cannot be expected to report more incidents than the police – even though other hate crime monitoring services such as the Community Security Trust tend to produce higher figures for antisemitic hate incidents than those published by the Home Office.

A Decade of Failure?

Last July, Tell MAMA published a major report, ‘A Decade of Anti-Muslim Hate’. This was the first time it had released statistics on anti-Muslim hate crimes since its annual report in March 2020.

According to Mishcon de Reya, “this shows that the number of cases reported has increased steadily over time, including increasing from 1,223 in 2016 to 2,301 in 2021”. It described the report as evidence of Tell MAMA’s national monitoring service since 2012.

“The figure for 2022 is 2,656 and the figure for 2023, which is yet to be published, is higher still… In total, over 20,000 Muslims in the UK have used Tell MAMA’s reporting and monitoring service.”

But, from 2017 to 2022, Tell MAMA’s statistics were consistently lower than anti-Muslim hate crime figures published by the Home Office based on police data.

This is particularly questionable given that, as the UK Statistics Authority points out, police data systematically underestimates hate crimes. Under-reporting is likely worse for anti-Muslim hate crimes due to a lack of trust among communities in how authorities deal with such issues.

For 2017/18, the Home Office reported 2,965 anti-Muslim hate crimes for England and Wales based on police data. For 2017, Tell MAMA reported 1,400 anti-Muslim hate crimes across the entirety of the UK (1,565 fewer cases).

The Home Office reported 3,530 anti-Muslim hate crimes for 2018/19; Tell MAMA reported 2,000 for 2018 (1,530 fewer). The Home Office reported 3,089 for 2019/20; Tell MAMA reported 2,100 for 2019 (503 fewer). The Home Office reported 2,703 for 2020/21; Tell MAMA reported 2,200 for 2020 (503 fewer). The Home Office reported 3,459 for 2021/22; Tell MAMA reported 2,301 for 2021 (1,158 fewer). The Home Office reported 3400 for 2022/23; Tell MAMA reported 2,656 for 2022 (744 fewer).

Despite stating that it works in close cooperation with UK police forces, Tell MAMA’s 10-year report throws little light on how the cases logged in this period relate to police data. The report also adopts a way of categorizing each year that isn’t consistent with Home Office annual reporting, further undermining ways to compare data.

If Tell MAMA’s national monitoring service was robust and useful, its figures would be expected to fill the gaps missed due to police under-reporting.

Overall, from 2017 to 2022, the police recorded 19,146 anti-Muslim hate crimes for England and Wales (excluding Scotland). In the same period – which is when Faith Matters ceased mentioning that it was running a national anti-Muslim hate crime monitoring service in its CIC filings – Tell MAMA reported 13,143 anti-Muslim hate crimes for England, Scotland and Wales combined – 6,003 fewer than the police figures.

Tell MAMA’s figures in this period were, on average, 32% lower than police data.

Police Not Seeing Most Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes

Tell MAMA’s figures therefore offer even less of a useful picture than that provided by flawed police data.

How badly police data under-reports anti-Muslim hate crimes can be understood by comparing data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which provides large-scale statistics based on long-term trends derived from surveying the public, with recorded police data published by the Home Office.

The latest available data from the Crime Survey is for 2019/20. It shows that the estimated number of hate crimes was about 190,000. That is approximately 45% higher than hate crimes recorded by the police which were 105,090, indicating that police figures are nearly half the real scale of hate crimes.

The gap is even wider for anti-Muslim hate crimes.

That year, the Crime Survey estimated that 0.8% of the Muslim population (about 3.8 million people according to the 2021 Census) had experienced religiously-motivated hate crimes – which would translate into an estimated 30,400 people experiencing hate crimes. In contrast, the police recorded just 3,089 anti-Muslim hate crimes.

According to the latest data, then, the police under-report anti-Muslim hate crimes by a little under 90%.

Given that Tell MAMA’s statistics from 2017 to 2022 are overall 32% lower than police figures, this suggests that Tell MAMA underestimates the scale of anti-Muslim hate crimes in Britain even further – by more than 90%.

And, after 12 years in operation, Tell MAMA not only appears to lack any strategy to do anything about this, but seems reluctant to even acknowledge the problem.

Distorting the National Picture

The statistical significance of missing more than 90% of anti-Muslim hate crimes cannot be overstated. It means that anti-Muslim hatred is now a national crisis – but one the Government is largely blind to.

Earlier this year, Tell MAMA reported 2,010 incidents of anti-Muslim hatred between 7 October 2023 and 7 February 2024. This is likely to be a small fraction of the real number, which could be closer to more than 20,000 hate crimes (the same number of users Tell MAMA says it has served since 2012).

Tell MAMA’s figures obscure rather than illuminate this crisis, leaving the Government asleep at the wheel on one of the most divisive issues of our time – a challenge which plagues both political parties.

The prevailing approach to this crisis is not based on reality, but on statistical artefacts derived from a tiny fraction of actual incidents.

When Byline Times’ findings were put to Faith Matters for comment, Mishcon de Reya made clear that it wanted this newspaper to refrain from publishing the article until it had sent over a “substantive” reply. Before that reply was sent, however, Tell MAMA published a statement on its website responding to Byline Times’ analysis of its figures.

In this statement, Tell MAMA did not dispute the analysis, but claimed that “it is impossible to record all hate crimes and particularly difficult given the scale, nature, geographical location and nationality of British Muslims from over 50 Muslim-majority countries”.

“We are not meant, nor resourced to be, an organization that looks for hate incidents or crimes on the internet or at a street level,” it said. “We report on what is provided to us by victims, and which is unsolicited.”

It added: “No third-party hate crime reporting service will have data that is higher than police forces. That is a simple fact.”

Yet, during the past five years, figures for antisemitic incidents in the UK produced annually by the Community Security Trust (CST) – the Jewish community service which Tell MAMA was modelled on – have been consistently higher than national police figures.

For 2023, CST reported 4,103 incidents of anti-Jewish hate, whereas the Home Office recorded only 1,510 anti-Jewish hate-crimes in this period. In 2021, CST reported 2,261 incidents, while the Home Office recorded 1,288 incidents. In 2020, CST recorded 1,684 antisemitic incidents, while the Home Office recorded 1,205 incidents. (In the past five years, CST figures were only lower than police figures in 2022, by around 300 reports).

The Tell MAMA statement appears to concede that the organization does little in terms of outreach work to ensure that it can detect cases more accurately, noting: “We do not go looking for cases or seeking material online or offline. If we did so, we would be here with a workload that would far exceed the limited resources we have and the data would not be credible.”

It accepted that “of course, the numbers of cases we receive will be less than the police”.

Given that police data systematically fails to capture the vast majority of cases of anti-Muslim hate incidents across the country, Tell MAMA’s statement is notable for at once admitting that its figures are even lower than the police’s, while simultaneously failing to acknowledge that missing 90% of anti-Muslim hate crimes is a problem that must be urgently addressed.

The evidence of poor quality data reinforces concerns raised by cross-bench peer Baroness Shaista Gohir – supported by a number of British Muslim members of the House of Lords including former Conservative Party co-chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi – in several letters sent to ministers of the last Government, seen exclusively by Byline Times.

As reported in the first part of this investigation, those letters raised concerns about Tell MAMA’s opaque governance, its lack of transparency in use of public funds, poor data practices, and a lack of accountability.

Against this backdrop, the question of how the new Labour Government will address rising Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred is urgent but unclear.

Faith Matters appears to have spent a considerable resources attempting to silence criticism, rather than addressing concerns. The idea of a government-funded entity threatening litigation to block publication of criticisms of its work raises a question of its own: is it financing this using public funds? Like much else about the organization, we may never know.

Source: Byline Times

Pulsing music emanates from within a curtained-off gallery in Anida Yoeu Ali’s exhibition at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. Behind the curtains, the video Genesis 1 (2021) plays. ‘The Red Chador lives and rages on. My existence is an act of protest and defiance because I refuse to disappear,’ a text across the screen reads. The video sets out a mythos for The Red Chador, one of Ali’s performance personas.

While a chador, a full-body cloth often worn by Muslim women, is commonly found in darker colors like black or blue, Ali’s is bright and sequinned, both regal and campy. In the film, there is a surreal montage of Ali as The Red Chador emerging from the ocean, and urban scenes of other chador-wearing dancers in a rainbow of colors. Genesis 1 is, in part, provoked by the Cham-Muslim, Cambodia-born artist’s experience with Islamophobia while boarding an Israeli airline to the US in 2017. She was strip-searched and threatened with deportation; while detained for four hours, border officers repeatedly asked why her last name is Ali; the original Red Chador piece was mysteriously missing from her luggage when she arrived in the US, and never seen again. So, in Genesis I The Red Chador, returning as if reborn from one nontraditional bright color into many, reads as a refusal of oppression through multiplicity.

There are photos of The Red Chador’s first performance, in 2015 at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo where, in an at once humorous and deadly serious commentary on Islamophobia and colonization, the character threatened to execute a baguette every hour. Ali’s work draws on her own cultural background – Cham is a layered, multilingual identity with Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim influences, spread across the national borders between Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia – while also looking to confront and subvert stereotypes of Southeast Asian communities. As such, her performance personas are a multifaceted response to forms of othering: at once looking to add nuance to an American audience’s understanding of her origins, whose common first reference to her world might well be the 1975–79 Cambodian Genocide under the Khmer Rouge, while also opening up space in which to critique misogyny within the Muslim community.

Based in the adjoining city of Tacoma, Ali is surely aware of the ways in which Seattle’s intricate overlap of cultures and spiritual communities nonetheless often remain segregated from more central, monied and white neighborhoods. In February of this year in Seattle, a Muslim woman was assaulted at knifepoint, her hijab forcibly removed in a suspected hate crime. Throughout the United States, during the current Israel–Hamas conflict, reports of anti-Muslim attacks have increased. Before the opening of the exhibition, Ali’s professional website was hacked and she received personal and anti-Muslim threats via social media. It is in this environment that in early June Ali held her latest performance, The Red Chador (Afterlife) (2024), a daylong procession through key landmarks of downtown Seattle. Beginning at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, the performance travelled through the Westlake Center mall to the city’s iconic Space Needle, then through the Olympia Sculpture Park, along the downtown waterfront and finally to the Seattle Art Museum.

The final stop is the Seattle Art Museum. After processing through the galleries, the Chadors sit on the floor in a circle in the main lobby, then they remove their veils to reveal relieved and appreciative smiles. The overall aura is exhaustion and satisfaction. While sitting among Chadors, the remaining audience members speak of feeling inspired, and of having learned about the connection between Ali’s perspective and the contemporary moment. The method of Ali’s performance could be said to match that of her own lived experience: different realities, no matter how irreconcilable they seem, are understood as cocreated.

Read more at: ArtReview.com

There has been a rise in anti-Muslim incidents at German schools because of the far-right’s narratives, and the recent developments in the Middle East, a Berlin-based rights group has reported.

The ADAS anti-discrimination center has received more and more complaints in recent months from students, as well as their parents over anti-Muslim acts, insults, and verbal harassment.

“More than half of the complaints we have received are about incidents of anti-Muslim racism. Considering that Muslims constitute 6 to 8 percent of the population in Germany, this is a rather high rate,” said ADAS’s director, Aliyeh Yegane Arani.

The Berlin-based ADAS is providing counseling and support to pupils, parents, teachers, and school staff who have experienced or witnessed discrimination.

The vast majority of complaints received by ADAS are incidents of racism towards Black people, and anti-Muslim hate crimes and discrimination, Anti-Muslim sentiment is impacting not only Muslim students but anyone perceived to be Muslim.

“About 20% of cases are explicitly about anti-Muslim racism. These incidents involve some teachers using Islamophobic expressions, or girls, women being discriminated against because of their headscarves, mobbing against Muslim students” Arani said.

She pointed out that there are also other forms of anti-Muslim racism that affect people who are perceived to be Muslim because of their name, appearance or origin, but who are not religious at all, perhaps not even Muslim. Arani said these account for around 40% of the complaints they have received.

According to the estimates of the ADAS, the actual figures on the anti-Muslim incidents at schools could be much higher, as many students and parents do not report these to authorities or anti-discrimination centers.

“There are many cases that go unreported. Only very few people apply and report such incidents, many of the cases at schools are not reported or addressed,” Arani said.

She pointed out that anti-Muslim hate propaganda of the far-right groups, racist narratives about immigrants were among the reasons for the sharp rise in Islamophobic cases in recent years. She also noted that there has been a rise in reported incidents after the Israel–Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023.

With a population of over 84 million people, Germany has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. It is home to more than 5 million Muslims, according to official figures.

The country faced growing racism and xenophobia in recent years, fueled by the propaganda of far-right, and anti-Muslim groups, including the opposition party Alternative for Germany, or the AfD.

Last year, German authorities recorded at least 686 Islamophobic crimes, including verbal and physical assaults against Muslims on the streets, threatening letters sent to Islamic institutions, and arson attacks that targeted mosques.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Minnesota governor Tim Walz condemned the attacks, voicing support to the Muslim community.

“Here in Minnesota, everyone must be able to practice their faith without fear. To members of our Muslim community – my heart is with you today. We will not tolerate acts of violence toward our friends and neighbors,” he wrote on Twitter.

The first incident occurred Sunday when congregants at Masjid Omar Islamic Center, a mosque located inside 24 Somali Mall, called police about 7:16 pm for a fire in the mosque’s bathroom, according to Minneapolis police. The congregants put out the fire before it could spread.

The second fire occurred Monday evening at Masjid Al Rahma, located in Mercy Islamic Center building less than one mile from Masjid Omar Islamic Center. The fire at Masjid Al Rahma occurred on the third floor, which houses business offices it leases out.

The fire caused extensive damage in the third floor and second floor hallways that could cost $50,000 to repair.

“When these attacks happen, it’s to our children, and that’s what makes it even more disturbing and personal for me,” said Nimco Ahmed, president of the Somali American Coalition Action Fund, as she held her 3-year-old daughter, Star Tribune reported.

“It’s very sad because this state that we call home is so precious to us.”

Police released security photos of a white male suspect. Yet, no arrests have been made in fires at both mosques.

“We’re very confident that we will be able to bring this person to justice, but in the meantime we cannot afford to have anything else happen, and we want to be able to ensure that all people can be safe,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a news conference.

Planning a solidarity event at 6 pm Saturday at the Masjid Al Rahma mosque, speakers at the news conference voiced support for the Muslim community and lamented the rise of Islamophobic attacks.

“We’ve got to do something,” said Minneapolis Council Member Jamal Osman. “Hate cannot win in our state.”

A CAIR report, “Targeted: 2018 Civil Rights Report”, recorded 144 anti-mosque incidents in 2017, of which 57 were hate crimes.

It’s noteworthy that many local communities have always come in support of the Muslim community in many cases.

In 2021, members of the local community in Suffolk county in Brentwood, New York, came together in a show of support to the local mosque which was vandalized last month.

In September 2019, the vandalism of the new welcome sign at the Islamic Centre of Grand Junction, Colorado, prompted community to show support and start crowdfunding to repair the damaged sign.

Source: AboutIslam.net

Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) Secretary-General Zara Mohammed condemned the “pervasive form of bigotry” and the threat it poses, especially to young Muslims. Racially motivated hate crimes saw an increase of 12 per cent while the volume of charges has seen a decrease in recent years, suggesting a need for further action.

This November has seen the start of Islamophobia Awareness Month (IAM), with Muslim organizations calling for wider awareness and tolerance to help tackle this issue of racially and religiously motivated hate crimes.

One solution, backed by MCB, is for the government to accept the All-Party Parliamentary Group’s (APPG) 2018 definition of Islamophobia: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”

The Islamophobia Response Unit (IRU) project under the organization Mend has been working to solve the problem with a longer-term approach. The unit focuses on year-round free legal and emotional support to victims, data collection on hate crime statistics and signposting to partner organizations.

Source: The Evening Standard

The number of bias incidents in 2017 also increased by 24 percent compared to the first half of 2016. [NOTE: Bias incidents are defined as cases in which there was an identifiable element of religious discrimination. Hate crimes are criminal offenses against persons or property, or incidents that can be charged as such under relevant state or federal statute.]

“The presidential election campaign and the Trump administration have tapped into a seam of bigotry and hate that has resulted in the targeting of American Muslims and other minority groups,” said Zainab Arain, coordinator in CAIR’s Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia. “If acts of bias impacting the American Muslim community continue as they have been, 2017 could be one of the worst years ever for such incidents.”

The most frequent type of incidents documented by CAIR in the second quarter of 2017 were harassment, defined as a non-violent or non-threatening incident. The second most common type of bias incidents were hate crimes, and have involved physical violence or property damage. Episodes in which the complainant was questioned by the FBI or otherwise appears to have inappropriately targeted by the agency are the third most common.

The most prevalent trigger of anti-Muslim bias incidents in 2017 remains the victim’s ethnicity or national origin, accounting for 32 percent of the total. Twenty percent of incidents occurred because of an individual being perceived as Muslim. A Muslim woman’s headscarf was a trigger in 15 percent of incidents.

The report dataset is drawn primarily from the intakes CAIR conducts each year. With each case, civil rights and legal staff seek to ensure the highest possible level of accuracy. CAIR recently launched an app to share critical “know your rights” information and simplify the process to report hate crimes and bias incidents and is urging Muslims to download the app and utilize this resource to stay informed and empowered.

CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

READ the Full CAIR Quarterly Report on American Muslim Civil Rights here.

Source: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

They awaited those arriving for the afternoon prayer at the Muslim American Society Katy Center. As people streamed in, the group waved and handed them pins with more heart shapes. “We just want to give love to our neighbors,” they told those arriving.

At a time when calls have arisen to ban all Muslims from entering the country and while hate crimes targeting Islam have jumped, Muslims throughout the nation have expressed new fears, which have been elevated since the presidential election of Donald Trump. As a counterpoint, this group of about 25 people at the MAS Katy Center gathered on the bitterly cold Friday to illustrate a message of unity.

Kristin Miller, a 50-year-old Katy resident who works at a fine arts nonprofit, organized the gathering largely through social media, calling it a “day of solidarity.” The event came in direct response to the negativity she said Muslims have felt lately, particularly during the election season.

During his campaign, President-elect Trump discussed having a Muslim registry and called on all Muslims to be banned from entering the United States until “our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on” in relation to terror threats, a statement he walked back but which some Muslims still fear.

Many Americans have grown weary towards Muslims because of groups like the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS, which has become notorious for carrying out acts of terror throughout the Middle East in the name of Islam and influenced individuals in western countries to follow suit.

In the day’s after Trump’s Nov. 8 election, hate crimes, which are defined as being motivated by prejudice, reportedly spiked across U.S. school campuses and elsewhere. Incidents included stories by female Muslim students saying people attempted to remove their head coverings.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation also said in their latest hate crime report that anti-Muslim hate crimes in the U.S. rose about 67 percent from 154 incidents in 2014 to 257 in 2015. Overall hate crimes increased by 6.8 percent in the same time frame.

While Houston is an area that typically celebrates its diverse population, its Muslim citizenry remains troubled by the rise in hate crimes…Not surprisingly, Friday’s gathering couldn’t escape some politics.

Inside the mosque, Dr. Main Al-Qudah, a visiting Imam from the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America, spoke a message of unity to a congregation of dozens of mostly men.

Source: Houston Chronicle