The surge in Islamophobic bias in the United States in late 2023 horrifies the soul. Wadea al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Muslim Palestinian boy, was stabbed to death in Chicago. A Georgia teacher threatened to decapitate a student for criticising an Israeli flag he put up in the classroom. A Maryland-based Muslim’s routine donation to a place of worship in Ohio was reportedly delayed by PayPal “[i]n light of the ongoing national emergency in Israel”.In the last three months of 2023, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, received a staggering 3,578 complaints about discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or religion. This number illustrates the alarming reality that, under President Joe Biden, Islamophobic bias has reached unprecedented levels, surpassing in some ways even the appalling track record of the previous administration.By comparison, in the three months following then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s December 2015 campaign pledge to ban Muslims from entering the US, our organisation received 1,098 complaints. After Trump was elected, he issued an executive order enacting the ban on January 27, 2017. In the following three months, CAIR received an additional 1,813 complaints, bringing the total of the two surges to 2,911 complaints.
Load More
Load More