Anti-Muslim incidents climbed sharply last year, civil rights group says

There was a huge surge in anti-Muslim bias incidents in 2023, the highest number of such incidents recorded in 30 years, according to the Council of American-Islamic Relations, the U.S.’s largest Muslim civil rights organization.

CAIR received a large number of complaints over anti-Muslim incidents last year, nearly half of which were reported in the last three months alone, after the Israel-Gaza war began on Oct. 7.

The group received a total of 8,061 complaints in 2023. The most common complaints CAIR received in 2023 were over immigration and asylum, 20% of all complaints, followed by employment discrimination, 15%; education discrimination, 8.5%; and hate crimes and incidents, 7.5%, according to the CAIR’s annual civil rights report.

The surge in complaints comes one year after CAIR had marked a decline in the number of complaints it received — just over 5,000 in 2022 versus 6,720 in 2021.

“As we wrote then, the report’s findings could be considered a return to a ‘pre-Trump administration baseline,’ an indication of progress made toward mitigating the impact of Islamophobia in the US,” according to the report.

“However, what was then welcomed as a ‘positive sign’ for the future of Muslim civil rights and civil liberties quickly disappeared as anti-Muslim hate resurged across the country in the final quarter of 2023,” according to the report.

While the number of anti-Muslim bias incidents were at their highest recorded number in CAIR’s history in 2023, the group did not track incidents in 2009 to 2013 or in 2018 and 2019.

The rise in anti-Muslim complaints comes as antisemitic hate crimes are also on the rise.

Antisemitic hate crimes rose 25% from 2021 to 2022, according to statistics released by the FBI. Officials have also warned that there has been a rise in antisemitism after the Hamas attack, part of an ongoing increase around the world.

An increase in both antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes was seen in America’s largest and most diverse city, New York, after Oct. 7, as well, according to police statistics.

There were 11 confirmed anti-Muslim hate crimes in New York City from Oct. 7, 2023, to Dec. 30, 2023, according to the NYPD, and 26 confirmed antisemitic hate crimes over the same time period — a total of one anti-Muslim hate crime every 7.7 days, and one antisemitic hate crime every 3.3 days. There were just five confirmed anti-Muslim hate crimes…