In 2023, there were 8,061 complaints, up 56% from the previous year and the most since the Council on American-Islamic Relations started keeping track of them almost 30 years ago. According to CAIR, over 3,600 of those occurrences happened between October and December.
Human rights activists have also noted an increase in antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian prejudice worldwide following the most recent escalation of hostilities in the Middle East.
A number of events have occurred in the United States, including the fatal stabbing of 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian American, in Illinois in October, the shooting of three students of Palestinian heritage in Vermont in November, and the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas in February.
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According to vCAIR’s study, there was a “resurgence of anti-Muslim hate” in 2023, following the first-ever yearly decline in complaints in 2022. These occurrences occurred on average 500 times per month in the first nine months of 2023, but in the final quarter, that number shot up to about 1,200 times per month.
According to the research, “the escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine in October 2023 was the primary force behind this wave of heightened Islamophobia.”
According to CAIR, the most common complaint categories in 2023 were immigration and asylum, employment discrimination, hate crimes, and discrimination in education.
According to CAIR, it examined videos and statements made in public, as well as reports from emails, calls, and an online complaint system. It got in touch with folks whose stories ended up in the papers.