A chilling new report by the Pew Research Center has revealed that there were almost as many hate crimes against Muslims in the U.S. in 2015 as there were in 2001. According to hate crimes statistics released by the FBI this year, there were 91 reported aggravated or simple assaults motivated by anti-Muslim bias in 2015, almost matching the 2001 record of 93. The number of reported intimidation crimes against Muslims also rose, with 120 reported last year, compared to 296 in 2001.
The total number of anti-Muslim hate crimes increased by 67 percent in 2015, to a total of 257 incidents comprised of 301 individual crimes. 71% of these crimes were crimes against people, not property. In comparison, the majority of hate crimes against Jews, Catholics, or other religious groups involved property crimes such as theft or vandalism.
These figures only represent the number of assaults and intimidation crimes reported to the FBI. The hate crime data that the agency collects comes from around 15,000 law enforcement agencies that voluntarily participate. Because of this, the actual number of hate crimes against Muslims is likely much higher than the number that the FBI has reported.
The FBI will not release hate crime data for 2016 until next year, but the increase in violence against Muslims is expected to match or exceed the 2015 levels. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported over thirty cases of anti-Muslim incidents in the five days following Trump's election alone.