Islamic-American Organization Finds Jump in anti-Muslim Acts

by Mike Liu
10/18/06

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that reports of discrimination, harassment and violence against Muslims increased over 30 percent in 2005 from the previous year. They also found an increase of 9 percent of anti-Muslim hate crimes during the same time.

In 2005 CAIR said it had also received 153 reports of anti-Muslim hate crimes and 1,972 such hate incidents. The states of California, Illinois, and New York accounted for 40% of these acts.

CAIR also cited widespread negative attitudes toward Muslims. A separate CAIR survey indicated that one quarter of Americans believe that "Muslims value life less than other people" and "The Muslim religion teaches violence and hatred." This was confirmed by media poll where one-quarter of the respondents admitted to having prejudice toward Muslims and nearly one-half viewed Islam as a negative religion.

The full report is available here.