CAIR: ANTI-MUSLIM HARASSMENT COMPLAINTS JUMP 30 PERCENT - <mid://00001038/#AMERICAN MUSLIM NEWS BRIEFS> TOP Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post, 9/18/06 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR200609180 0597.html> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091800 597.html
Complaints of anti-Muslim harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment registered with a national Muslim civil rights group jumped 30 percent in 2005 from the previous year, the group said today in releasing its annual report. The 1,972 complaints made to the Council on American-Islamic Relations are the most the group has received since it began the annual reports following anti-Muslim incidents after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The group said it actually received 2,300 reports but deemed some of them illegitimate. The number of complaints has continually risen since 1995, but began spiking significantly in 2003, the report said. CAIR officials said the jump between 2004 and 2005 seems to be due to "a rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric fed by the Internet and also on talk radio," group spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said at a news conference. "You can't turn on the radio without hearing negative, bigoted comments about Islam." The District and nine states, including Maryland and Virginia, accounted for 79 percent of complaints. These places also account for the highest population of Muslims, Hooper said. The highest number of complaints fall into the "due process" category, said CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar; those include complaints such as racial profiling and unreasonable arrest or interrogation. Second are complaints of religious accommodation being denied and third are complaints of employment discrimination, according to the report. (MORE) SEE ALSO: CAIR: U.S. MUSLIM ADVOCACY GROUP SAYS NUMBER OF ANTI-MUSLIM CIVIL RIGHTS CASES UP BY 30 PERCENT - <mid://00001038/#AMERICAN MUSLIM NEWS BRIEFS> TOP <http://www.beliefnet.com/story/199/story_19987_1.html> Associated Press, 9/18/06 WASHINGTON (AP) - The largest advocacy organization for American Muslims reported Monday an increase of almost 30 percent in civil rights complaints in 2005 from the year before. Almost one in five of the complaints came from California, which with eight other states and the District of Columbia accounted for close to 80 percent of the 1,972 complaints. Behind California in the listing were Illinois, New York, Texas, Virginia, Florida, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Ohio and New Jersey. Half those -- New York, Virginia, District of Columbia, Maryland and New Jersey -- are mid-Atlantic states along the eastern U.S. seaboard. The survey result is not scientific. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the figures represent complaints made directly to CAIR or otherwise gleaned by the council. "What it shows is a general trend, and the fact is that each year the number has been going up," Hooper said. CAIR began tabulating anti-Muslim incidents after the 1995 destruction of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Early media reports of that bombing, which killed 168 people including a nursery and 19 children, speculated that the bombers might have been Muslims. Former U.S. Army soldier Timothy McVeigh eventually was convicted and executed. In the 2005 report, "Most categories either remained at the same levels or increased in frequency from last year's report," the survey said. Complaints involving Muslim-owned businesses and "due process" issues showed major decreases, it said. "Due process" included unreasonable arrest and detention, surveillance, interrogation and the like. Despite a drop of 8 percentage points to 17.39 percent of the total, "due process" cases remained the largest single category. CAIR received more than 2,320 reports. The 1,972 included in the tabulations were the ones determined by CAIR investigators to warrant inclusion. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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