Threats, Harassment, Vandalism at Mosques Reach Record
The previous height? That would be during hatemonger Pam Geller’s anti-“ground zero” mosque campaign in 2010, that ushered Euro-style tribal fascist fear tactics into this country. What Pam Gellar does is entirely un American, just like the un American hate and fear that Donald Trump spews. In a normal year everyone would be throwing down on them, but headed into the GOP primaries it’s the bigots who are the belles of the ball and the bullroarers both at once.
Gunshots fired into a mosque in Connecticut. Armed men protesting the “Islamization of America” outside Islamic centers in Texas. Death threats called in to mosques in Florida, Maryland and Virginia.
Anecdotal evidence suggests 2015, a year bookended by murderous attacks carried out in the name of Islam, has been one of the most intensely anti-Muslim periods in American history. A new study shared with CNN puts statistical heft behind that suspicion.
Through December 8, American mosques and Islamic centers have been the victims of vandalism, harassment and anti-Muslim bigotry at least 63 times this year, the Council on American-Islamic Relations says in the study. That’s the highest number since the Muslim civil rights group began keeping track in 2009 and a threefold increase over last year.
The previous high was 53 incidents in 2010, during the controversy over the “ground zero mosque” near the site of the 9/11 attack in New York. But many of those incidents concerned bias at zoning hearings for new mosques. This year’s hostilities have a sharper edge.
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