Hate Crimes against American Muslims
An Arab-American teenager in New York was assaulted on August 13 with a baseball bat. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called this "an anti-immigrant, anti-Arab, and racially charged attack." The victim was identified as Tarek Elsayed, an 18-year-old Egyptian-American.
Somaia Harrati, a 17-year-old American Moroccan Muslim woman wearing hijab, was assaulted with a bottle of urine and Islamophobic slurs on August 10 in Bronx, New York. The NYPD was urged to initiate a hate crimes probe in the Islamophobic incident.
On July 2, 2020, in New York, Rashid Hassan, a Pakistani taxi driver, was assaulted and yelled "Go back to your country." The police and an ambulance were called to the scene. Mr. Hassan was taken to the hospital and may need surgery on his eye to prevent blindness due to a blood clot resulting from the assault. Another driver nearby recorded the incident and provided the footage to the responding officers.
A 50-year-old Muslim man was assaulted outside the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minn., on August 6-night. The victim was walking to Dar Al-Farooq when two people described as being in their late teens or early twenties approached and assaulted him, according to police. The victim suffered a non-life-threatening injury and was transported to Fairview Southdale Hospital.
On September 9, Pennsylvania chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported a Muslim man in that state by an alleged attacker who is shown shouting "Go back to your country" during the incident. The assault was captured on video.
Muslim woman sues Los Angeles Police Department for forcibly removing her hijab: In September, Nusaiba Mubarak, a 26-year-old Muslim woman sued the Los Angeles Police Department a year after she said officers forcibly removed her hijab. The federal lawsuit, filed on Sept. 17, in the Central District of California, names the city of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore, police Detective Corey Harmon and four officers as defendants. On Sept. 17, 2019, officers handcuffed and searched Nusaiba Mubarak and forcibly removed her hijab at a police commission meeting held to discuss the fatal police shooting of Albert Ramon Dorsey, alleges the lawsuit, filed by the greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Los Angeles Police Department, according to the lawsuit, violated Mubarak's First Amendment rights by forcibly removing her headscarf without her permission in public. The lawsuit seeks an injunction requiring the city and the Police Department to adopt policies prohibiting the removal of religious head coverings or headwear worn for religious practice by arrestees or detainees.
Spying on Muslims using data from religious Apps: On November 16, the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the government's reported use of personal data from popular Muslim religious applications to target Muslims around the world, called for a congressional inquiry into the possible warrantless surveillance of American Muslims, and warned the Muslim community to stop using the targeted applications.
According to Vice, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a branch of the military, responsible for "counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and special reconnaissance" obtained access to movement data of Muslims using the apps to assist on overseas special forces operations.
Ordinarily, the government would need a warrant to secure such information if it was not available for purchase. CAIR questions the legality of the U.S. government's purchase of private data on the movements of these apps' users, which include Americans. An estimated 98 million users have downloaded Muslim Pro on Apple and Google Play enabled devices.
In a statement provided to Vice, Navy Commander Tim Hawkins, a USSOCOM spokesperson, confirmed the purchase of Muslim app location data and added that: "Our access to the software is used to support Special Operations Forces mission requirements overseas. We strictly adhere to established procedures and policies for protecting the privacy, civil liberties, constitutional and legal rights of American citizens."
Anti-Muslim Bigotry
Bigotry against Muslims is now pervasive and considered normal in the US society. Tennessee's Coffee County District Attorney Craig Northcott posts a series of anti-Muslim comments on Facebook. In his Facebook posts, Northcott stated: Islam is an evil belief system.
Fairmont televangelist makes anti-Muslim comments in broadcast: In a broadcast hosted by Fairmont televangelist preacher John Polis on Nov. 1, he says a majority of mosques in the country are used for training troops for war, and said Islam is a danger to the country, because of teachings in the Quran. "When push comes to shove, they'll switch over and they'll get their head cut off," Polis said in the broadcast. "Push comes to shove and there is a war, they will be being real Muslims."
Larry Buckland, interim chair of the Fairmont Human Rights Commission and pastor of LIFE United Methodist Church, said the group disavows Polis' words and standpoint. The rhetoric promoted by Polis, he said, builds a culture of disdain towards a group of people.
Georgia Senate Leadership Fund sends Islamophobic campaign Mailer: In September, the Georgia Senate Leadership Fund circulated to Georgia voters an inflammatory and Islamophobic campaign mailer that displayed an image of a Middle Eastern man wearing a head covering with Arabic script spelling Al Jazeera in the background, It states without any citation, reference, or context that "Al Jazeera TV has been tied to terrorism in the Middle East." Al Jazeera, a major global news organization, with 80 bureaus around the world (including several in the United States), is one of the largest Arabic news conglomerates in the world. The ad is part of a longstanding pattern of political campaigns using Middle Eastern imagery and Arabic script to stoke fear of Muslims, including in Georgia.
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