Almost a week ago, authorities in the United States said that hate crimes against Muslims have gone up since the previous year. To be precise – the hatred has increased against every minority in the United States. The report, with its descriptive analysis on racist crimes across the United States, says that the primary reason for these crimes to start was fumed by this year’s presidential elections, and further fumed by terrorist attacks in the United States and in other countries in the past.
However, since Donald Trump became the President-elect, hate crimes have seen a spike in activity, with many news channels and social media accounts reporting crimes against Muslims and other minority groups living in the United States.
According to a report published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which states that more than five thousand hate crimes were committed last year – and the numbers are set to increase – these hate crimes particularly included threats, assaults, property destruction (against all minorities), and bombings. The report also specified that attacks against Muslims in particular, saw the biggest rise. According to the research done by the FBI, more than two hundred reports of assaults on Muslims, their houses, and Mosques were reported; the crimes have increased more than forty percent since 2014. However, the highest number of reported hate crimes against Muslims was registered after 11th September 2001.
It is not just the Muslims that are facing these atrocities. Attacks against the African Americans have increased, while the Jewish people were also being hated upon because of their religion. However, according to the FBI, the hate crimes and attacks on the transgender community are more than the attacks on the latter communities combined.
More than fifty percent of the data collected by the FBI states that hate crimes are based on ancestry, ethnic background or race. While religion prejudice counts for more than fifteen percent, attacks on women and other sexual crimes were numbered at more than twelve percent. The agency also stated that these numbers are not accurate as there are so many local police agencies that are yet to update them on data from their areas.
James Brien “Jim” Comey, Jr, who is the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation stated that crimes need to be fully understood so that the FBI can better protect the communities.
Since Donald Trump became the President-elect of the United States, organisations that monitor and research hate crimes have reported an increase in the physical and verbal harm towards the minorities and their communities.
There are many people who are trying to change these problems, with one such example to stop hate crimes shown below in an illustration by activist and a freelance artist, Maeril.
Maeril created a guide on what to do if you are witnessing Islamophobic harassment. The comic-like guide shows a safe way of tackling this situation, and it can be applied to any racial or similar hate activity. Not only limited to Islamophobia, this advice can also be used against anyone who is verbally abusing a person. If you have similar ideas, then please share them with us in the comments below.
This article (What to Do When You Witness Islamophobic Harassment) is a free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
Supporting Anonymous’ Independent & Investigative News is important to us. Please, follow us on Twitter: Follow @AnonymousNewsHQ
