Attacks on US Muslims rose eleven-fold this year alone, advocacy group says
Attacks on Muslim-American individuals and institutions are at a 15-month high under the Trump administration, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (Mpac) revealed on Thursday.
The group documented an eleven-fold increase in targeted incidents in the first three months of this year alone.
At least nine of the attacks occurred in March, ranging from vandalism and bomb threats at mosques to sexual assaults against Muslim women, according to Mpac's policy paper entitled, "The Pitfalls of Operation Epic Fury: How the Undeclared War Against Iran Hurts Americans’ Interests Abroad and at Home."
"The one factor we can identify in March is that at the end of February, the war in Iran started, and that is what we think is the delineation between what we saw before in 2025 versus what we're seeing here," Khuram Zaman, the founding director of the Center for Security, Technology and Policy at Mpac, told Middle East Eye.
"It's become so mainstream to talk about Muslims," he added.
"The talk of burning a mosque down, or doing an IED at a mosque, that's not stuff that you would normally see on social media. And all of a sudden, since the war in Iran, it's becoming acceptable for people [to] use that kind of terminology."
Last month, the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) said it tracked posts that explicitly dehumanised, excluded, and incited violence against Muslims from 1 January to 5 March, and noted a "sharp spike" in anti-Muslim posts on Elon Musk's X platform in the hours after the war on Iran began.
'When it's Muslims and our mosques and our communities, there doesn't seem to be that sense of urgency'
- Khuram Zaman, Center for Security, Technology and Policy at Mpac
The content examined by CSOH encompassed a wide swath that included everything from personal, hate-fuelled opinions to calls for lawmakers to institute strict anti-Muslim policy, including a "Muslim Exclusion Act" and the deportation of all Muslims.
But such rhetoric is also coming from Republican lawmakers, which is normalising the matter, Mpac's policy paper indicated.
Florida Congressman Randy Fine has largely led the charge, with his calls for the deportation of New York City's Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and his assertion that: "If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one."
He has come under fire from Democrats, but not from his own party or the US president.
Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles has also made it clear he believes "Muslims don’t belong in American society".
Both lawmakers are members of the newly-formed "Sharia-Free America" caucus, which now boasts more than 60 members of the Republican Party.
"[That] makes it larger than the Hispanic Caucus. It's larger than the Freedom Caucus, and I think it's about the same size as the Congressional Black Caucus. And members of this caucus have called for the denaturalisation and deportation of Muslims from America, which is ethnic cleansing," Zaman told MEE.
'Weakening civil society'
The overall anti-Muslim sentiment is not particularly new - at least not since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks - but the concern is that it is becoming far more accepted, Mpac's policy paper showed.
"Historically, periods of heightened US military engagement in the Middle East have been accompanied by an uptick in anti-Muslim sentiment, driven in part by shifts in media framing and political rhetoric that seek to mobilize public support for conflict," the group said.
But "the assumption that curtailing the rights of American Muslims enhances national security is not supported by evidence; rather, it risks undermining trust, cooperation, and the very social cohesion that effective security depends upon", it warned.
Mpac's foremost plea is for a permanent end to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
"The war with Iran would likely revive and expand domestic security practices reminiscent of the post-9/11 period, including heightened surveillance of American Muslim communities and the broadening of FBI investigative authorities," the policy paper read.
"Such measures have historically been accompanied by the erosion of civil liberties, from expanded watchlists to intrusive monitoring of religious and civic spaces...weakening civil society."
Rising anti-Muslim sentiment also impacts what Mpac described as "adjacent communities" or communities of colour that can be mistaken for being Muslim, such as Sikh, Hindu, Armenian, and Christian Arab Americans.
Mpac urged the Trump administration and public institutions to act in "swiftly condemning all hateful rhetoric and actions, holding perpetrators of violence accountable, and proactively engaging affected communities to understand and be responsive to their needs".
But Zaman cautioned that until social media companies start to "take this stuff seriously" and clamp down on accounts that fuel misinformation and violent threats, Muslim Americans will not be safe.
"When it's Muslims and our mosques and our communities, there doesn't seem to be that sense of urgency," he said.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
Read Full Article on Middle East Eye →