By Matt Zapotosky:
Law enforcement agencies across the country reported 257 anti-Muslim incidents in 2015, up nearly 67 percent from the year before, according to FBI data released Monday.
That is significant in its own right, but even more so in historical context. The last time the FBI recorded more than 160 anti-Muslim incidents was in 2001, when it reported 481. That was the year that Islamist militants attacked the World Trade Center, killing thousands and sparking a wave of anti-Muslim incidents.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that he believed the anti-Muslim rhetoric that came out of the presidential campaign was to blame and that he feared there will be more hate crimes this year.
“Whenever you have one of the nation’s leading public figures in the person of Donald Trump mainstreaming and empowering Islamophobia in the nation, it’s the inevitable result,” he said.
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