FBI hate-crime report: 67% surge in attacks on Muslims
WASHINGTON — The FBI on Monday released its annual tally of hate crimes, with numbers that confirmed the fears of Muslim advocacy groups: a 67 percent jump in offenses against Muslims in 2015.
Long before the FBI released its findings, American Muslims had sounded the alarm on a rise in attacks they categorized as “Islamophobic,” targeting Muslims specifically because of their faith. A resurgence of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric, most notably in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, correlated with a flurry of reports of assailants ripping off headscarves, spray-painting slurs on mosques, and harassing or even beating Muslims in the street.
“We saw this coming, and we’ve always thought that it was worse than has been reported,” said Paul Galloway, executive director of the American Muslim Advisory Council, a statewide advocacy group in Tennessee.
