Study: Muslim discrimination on the rise
Complaints in the United States of anti-Muslim discrimination rose 25 percent from 2005 to 2006, according to a new report by the US Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The report released Thursday records 2,467 incidents and cases of anti-Muslim violence, bias and harassment last year, with a marked increase in cases involving government agencies, which CAIR said related to delays in processing citizenship and naturalization applications from Muslims.
It cited the example an unnamed Muslim waiting five years after passing the citizenship test in 2002 before finally being granted citizenship in recent weeks — just before a lawsuit CAIR filed on the person’s behalf was to go to court this week.
CAIR also said it counted 167 reports of anti-Muslim hate crimes, a rise of 9.2 percent over 2005.
“Like the history of other minority groups in America, the experience of the American Muslim community after the tragedy of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is seen by many as the next chapter in American civil rights history,”
said Arsalan Iftikhar, CAIR’s legal director and author of the bias study.
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