Hate Crimes

Law enforcement officials investigate an explosion at the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minn., on Aug. 5, 2017. (David Joles/Star Tribune)
MINNEAPOLIS  — The Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in suburban Minneapolis, like other U.S. mosques, occasionally receives threatening calls and emails. Its leaders say they’re more frightened now after an explosive shattered windows and damaged a room as worshippers prepared for morning prayers.

The American boogeyman of terrorist threats, often used to further war and military intervention, comes with domestic consequences. In the United States, Muslim houses of worship have been inundated with threats of bodily harm and property destruction, as well as seen items like pig’s heads and desecrated Qurans left on their doorsteps.

By Gilad Atzmon
In March 2016, the British government pledged 13.4 million pounds to the Community Security Trust (CST), a Jewish body that is committed to fighting hatred against one group only. 

As police stand guard, armed anti-Muslim protestors, who did not want to give their names, stand across the street from a mosque during a demonstration in Richardson, Texas, Dec. 12, 2015. (AP/LM Otero)
It is one of the most striking and curious statistics contained in a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report on hate crimes in America: 54 percent of the roughly 250,000 people who said they were victimized in recent years chose not to file a formal complaint with the authorities.

People carry posters during a rally in support of Muslim Americans and protest of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies in Times Square, New York, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. (AP/Andres Kudacki)
Hate crimes against Muslims have been on the rise. The murder of two samaritans for aiding two young women who were facing a barrage of anti-Muslim slurs on a Portland train is among the latest examples of brazen acts of anti-Islamic hatred.

Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Horace Frank, right, shows a photo of multiple weapons found in the home of a man charged with making terrorist threats to the Islamic Center of Southern California, during a police news conference Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2016 in Los Angeles. (AP/Damian Dovarganes)
 SACRAMENTO, Calif.  – The number of hate crimes committed in California jumped 11 percent in 2016, including increases in attacks against black people and members of the LGTBQ community, state officials reported Monday.

Rashid Alam, a 18-year-old Muslim pauses next to a photo taken following his attack, at a news conference Wednesday, April 23, 2003, at the Council on American-Islamic Relations offices in Anaheim, Calif. (AP/Damian Dovarganes)
Hate crimes spiked in four major American cities in the first months of 2017, with the percentage year-over-year change in one of them, Chicago, reaching a staggering 160 percent, according to the nonpartisan Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

Willie Lawson paints over racist graffiti painted on the side of a mosque in Roseville, Calif. (AP/Rich Pedroncelli)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most victims of hate crimes don’t report them to police, according to a new study that advocates say reinforces their fears that the Trump administration’s tough rhetoric and policies will make more people afraid to come forward.

A member of the English Defence League far right group has his tattoo displayed during a protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Oct. 27, 2012. (AP/Matt Dunham)
London was struck by another terrorist attack on Monday morning. A white supremacist murdered a man and injured at least eight other people, ramming a van into a group of Muslims leaving the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park after Taraweeh prayers.
Witnesses said the attacker was shouting that he wanted to “kill all Muslims”.

A police officer stands near floral tributes in Finsbury Park after an incident where a van struck pedestrians, in London, June 19, 2017. A man plowed his vehicle into a crowd of Muslim worshipers outside a north London mosque early Monday, injuring at least nine people and killing one. (AP/Frank Augstein)
CNN, the New York Times, Daily Mail and News.com.au all decided to use last night’s horrific attack on London’s Finsbury Park Mosque welfare center as a chance to litigate the mosque’s past behavior.