The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), today released new civil rights data showing it received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023 amid a continuing wave of anti-Muslim protests and anti-Palestinian hate.
The country's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization noted that this figure represents a 178 percent increase in complaints received in the last three months of 2023 compared to a similar period the previous year.
Among this subset of complaints from October to December, he said, employment discrimination (19 percent), hate crimes and incidents (13 percent) and educational discrimination (13 percent) were the three most reported categories.
"In the face of relentless hatred and false slander, American Muslims, Arabs and a broad coalition of Jews, Christians, African Americans, Asian Americans and others continue to call for justice for Palestine," the Director of Research and Advocacy for Palestine said in a statement. CAIR, Corey Saylor. ?This coalition knows that the way to stop hate is to end the apartheid, occupation and genocide occurring in Palestine.
“Despite this disturbing wave of prejudice against Muslim, Arab-American and Palestinian communities, we are witnessing impressive resilience in the face of intolerance,” noted CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.
On Friday, CAIR welcomed a preliminary ruling issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's main judicial body, which declares South Africa's genocide charge against the Israeli government plausible, allows the case to proceed and orders the Israeli government to take various measures to prevent genocidal acts and report to the ICJ within one month.
CAIR called the numbers from its latest December data release "staggering."
In early 2023, CAIR had reported that 2022 showed the first drop in incoming complaints to the organization since it began tracking data in 1995.
This publication was supported in whole or part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the CaliFornia State Library.
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