Reports of hate crimes and bias incidents targeting Muslims in the United States spiked by about 50 percent in 2016 over the previous year, according to a new report by the Council on American Islamic Relations — a dramatic rise advocates attribute to a contentious presidential election and a hostile political rhetoric in which they say prejudice and violence toward Muslims have become commonplace.

CAIR recorded a 57 percent rise in reported anti-Muslim bias incidents over 2015 and a 44 percent rise in hate crimes targeting Muslims during the same period. Between 2014 and 2016, bias incidents reported to civil-rights group increased by 65 percent while hate crimes surged 584 percent, according to the Washington, D.C.-based organization.

“Those numbers are deeply troubling to everybody who values the idea of an America that’s inclusive and tolerant of all different people, of all different backgrounds,” said Corey Saylor, co-author of the report and director of CAIR’s Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia.

The report seeks to quantify the prejudice and added threats many Muslims say they’ve faced during the presidential campaign and most recently under the Trump Administration, particularly following the establishment of two White House policies restricting travel from several Muslim-majority countries.

“This brew, mixed with the erroneous placement of collective blame on every individual Muslim for the acts of a noxious few, contributed to a significant and distressing rise in incidents of Islamophobic bias,” the report said. “When Donald Trump became President of the United States on January 20, 2017, he brought an unprecedented record of conditioning audiences to fear Muslims.”

In the report, titled, “The Empowerment of Hate,” anti-Muslim bias incidents were divided into five categories: harassment, questioning or inappropriate targeting by the FBI, employment issues, hate crimes and denial of religious accommodation. Harassment was the most frequent type of reported abuse, accounting for an estimated 18 percent of anti-Muslim bias incidents in 2016.

The report cited a hate-filled letter sent to several mosques throughout California and in other states. Evergreen Islamic Center in San Jose became a target on Thanksgiving, when the letter mailed to the Islamic center referred to Muslims as “vile and filthy people” and “Children of Satan.” It warned that President-elect Donald Trump would do to Muslims, “what Hitler did to the Jews.”

“Throughout the whole country, there has been a spike against Muslims, ” said Hasan Z. Rahim, a spokesman for the Evergreen Islamic Center, following the incident. “And obviously we don’t have to be geniuses to relate this to the new president-elect.”

Rahim said the mosque received more than 1,000 letters of support after the letter was sent, though he realizes that, “In other places, it’s not as rosy as it is here.”

But Jan Soule, president of the Silicon Valley Association of Republican Women, said she has not seen anti-Muslim sentiments or hate incidents spike under Trump. The report, she said, is simply propaganda by CAIR to “hop up and incite the public.”

“They obviously have a bias they’re trying to promote,” she said, adding that she herself feels unsafe as a Trump supporter.

“A Muslim woman is safer wearing a hijab than I am wearing my ‘Make America Great Again’ hat,” Soule added.

President Trump’s controversial attempt to ban immigrants from six Muslim-majority nations got a hearing Monday in front of a federal appeals court in Virginia.

Trump signed this second travel ban March 6 after the suspension of his original executive order was upheld by a San Francisco-based federal appeals court. While the new version bars citizens from six-Muslim majority countries — Iraq was removed from the original executive order’s list — it does not apply to visa-holders. Citizens of Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Iran will face a 90-day suspension of visa processing and the indefinite ban on Syrian immigration was changed to 120 days, a period that could later be extended.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson put a freeze on the ban nationwide in March after hearing arguments on Hawaii’s request for a temporary restraining order involving the ban.

A Maryland judge followed suit specifically blocking the ban’s 90-day suspension of citizens of six Muslim-majority countries. A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will review the Hawaii case May 15.

When an individual contacts CAIR detailing a possible bias incident or hate crime, civil rights staffers review any preliminary materials and conduct interviews with these prospective clients as part of their confidential intake process, the report said. After gathering enough information to determine whether a case contains an identifiable element of religious, ethnic or national origin bias, staffers then get rid of any identifying information.

The information remains in their independent case management system and the case is entered into the national CAIR civil rights database, which is used by all chapters to chart incidents of religious discrimination as they occur.

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