Muslim civil rights group received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023, 178 percent increase over previous year
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today released new civil rights data showing that it has received 3,578 complaints during the last three months of 2023 amid an ongoing wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate.
This represents a 178 percent increase in incoming complaints in the last three months of 2023 compared to a similar period the previous year.
[MEDIA ADVISORY: CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor will give a brief overview and analysis of this new data at 1 p.m. Eastern. You can see that briefing on CAIR’s Facebook page.]
Among this subset of complaints from October to December, employment discrimination (19 percent), hate crimes and incidents (13 percent), and education discrimination (13 percent) were the three highest reported categories.
“In the face of relentless hate and bogus smears, American Muslims, Arabs and a broad coalition of Jewish, Christian, African American, Asian Americans, and others continue calling for justice for Palestine,” said CAIR Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor. “This coalition knows the way to stop the hate is to end the apartheid, occupation, and genocide occurring in Palestine.
“Despite this disturbing wave of bias targeting the Muslim, Arab-American and Palestinian communities, we are witnessing an impressive resilience in the face of bigotry,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.
SEE: Anti-Muslim Incidents Jump in US Amid Israel-Gaza War
SEE ALSO: Israel’s war on Gaza fuels growing anti-Muslim incidents in US
On Friday, CAIR welcomed a preliminary ruling issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the U.N.’s principal judicial body, that declares South Africa’s charge of genocide 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 back to the ICJ in one month.
CAIR called the numbers in its last data release in December “staggering.”
In early 2023, CAIR had reported that 2022 showed the first-ever drop in incoming complaints to the organization since it started tracking data in 1995.
SEE: 2023 Civil Rights Report Progress in the Shadow of Prejudice
[NOTE ON THE DATASET: CAIR’s previous data releases were part of our rapid response to the crisis level wave of Islamophobia in the U.S., and violence in Gaza. There are two points readers should be aware of: 1) CAIR chapters normally report data by month. This means today’s data covers Oct-Dec. Previous Gaza crisis releases covered periods within those months. 2) The complaint type breakdown is across all CAIR affiliates. Because we were engaged in rapid response serving victims of bias, previous data releases only broke down complaints called in to our national headquarters.]
[Note to Journalists: CAIR will release our full 2023 complaints dataset and analysis in the coming months. Subscribe to CAIR’s email list below to be notified of that report.]
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CONTACT: CAIR National Research and Advocacy Director Corey Saylor, 202-384-8857, csaylor@cair.com; CAIR National Research and Advocacy Coordinator Farah Afify, fafify@cair.com (202) 742-6410; CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com, CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com