Muslims say attacks, harassment up 29 percent

WASHINGTON — A woman in Freeport, Ill., hits a Muslim woman for wearing a headscarf, a Texas man firebombs a mosque in El Paso and a Quran is stuffed in a university library toilet in Stockton, Calif. Those were just three of the 1,972 acts of violence, harassment and discrimination committed against Muslims in America in 2005, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which Sept. 18 released “The Struggle for Equality,” a report examining Muslim civil rights in America.

The Washington-based civil rights group has conducted such a report since 1995, when violence against Muslims spiked after Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

The 2005 figure represents a 29.6 percent jump over 2004, when 1,522 cases were reported. The report also found that anti-Muslim “hate crimes” (physical assault) in 2005 rose 8.6 percent from the previous year, increasing to 153 last year from 141 in 2004.