Reports of Anti-Muslim or Islamophobic incidents were up 9% last year over 2020 figures to a 27-year high of 6,720 cases, according to an annual report released Monday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
CAIR cofounder and executive director Nihad Awad told a news conference that the District-based advocacy group’s report, titled “Still Suspect: The Impact of Structural Islamophobia,” indicates that “Islamophobia has become mainstream in America. It made its way into the government institutions and public sphere through laws, policies, political rhetoric and other manifestations.”
Mr. Awad said the 2021 total represents “the highest number of cases reported to CAIR in 27 years,” adding, “this milestone is alarming.”
Huzaifa Shahbaz, the group’s senior researcher, said there were 2,823 complaints on immigration and travel-related issues, the most common report received for the second year in a row.
One of CAIR’s chief targets is the federal watchlist of suspected terrorists.
Robert McCaw, the group’s government affairs director, said the rules for the list should be changed to preclude the inclusion of “innocent people, people who have not been arrested, charged or convicted on terrorism-related offenses from being listed.”
The group also wants to stop federal officials from sharing watchlist data with “foreign governments, private individuals and corporations and state police officers.”
Attorney Justin Sadowski of the CAIR Legal Defense Fund has filed lawsuits in Virginia, the District, Maryland, Texas, and Oregon challenging the constitutionality of the watchlist as well as the “religious questioning that the government will sometimes ask … at the border. We are challenging its effects on banking and on the ability to own and possess a gun.”
He added, “Congress has never authorized the watchlist. This is something that the Department of Justice and other government entities did on their own, based on an executive order in the fear and chaos after 9/11.”
The group also is pushing back against legislation blocking government contracts for those who advocate for boycotts, divestment and sanctions targeting Israel. He said such rules unconstitutionally punish “political speech in support of Palestine.”
The group said its report, available at www.cair.com, “catalogs a list of anti-Muslim incidents … ranging from hate crimes/bias incidents, forcible removal of hijabs, employment discrimination, mosque vandalisms, school bullying and intimidation.”
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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