Anti-Muslim hate crime rises

By The Associated Press

NEWARK -- The number of reported bias crimes and civil rights violations committed against Muslims in the United States soared to its highest level last year since the period immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new report finds.

The report by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations blames lingering animosity toward Muslims and a growing use of anti-Muslim rhetoric by some political, religious and media figures for the increase.

"We believe the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes and in the total number of civil rights cases, both of which will be outlined in our news conference, can be attributed at least in part to rising Islamophobic rhetoric in American society," said Arsalan Iftikhar, the council's legal director.

The council counted 1,522 incidents in which Muslims reported their civil rights had been violated in 2004, a 49 percent increase over 2003. Another 141 incidents of confirmed or suspected bias crimes were committed against Muslims, a 52 percent rise.

Some Muslim leaders were surprised by the findings. Yaser El-Menshawy, chairman of New Jersey's council of mosques, said he and others thought the number of anti-Muslim incidents shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon reached a peak that would not be repeated.

"I thought we were through with the high point after 9/11," he said. "My gut feeling is it may be a combination of the war in Iraq and mounting casualties, and that we're getting better at collecting this kind of data."

The most recent FBI report on hate crimes, issued last November and covering 2003, found that anti-Islamic crimes remained at the about same level -- 149 -- as the year before. The FBI report was drawn from information submitted by more than 11,900 law enforcement agencies nationwide.