2023 saw the "worst wave of anti-Muslim hate," advocacy group's report finds
CHICAGO (CBS) – Last year was "the worst wave of anti-Muslim hate," according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
CAIR received more than 8,000 complaints of anti-Muslim incidents last year, the highest ever in the organization's history. The group released its annual civil rights report on Tuesday.
CAIR, the largest Muslim advocacy group in the country, received more than 500 complaints in Illinois alone and the complaints surged after the beginning of the war in Gaza. On Oct. 7 Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis. Since then, Israel has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and in a record-breaking year for anti-Muslim complaints, it speaks volumes.
Nearly half of all complaints received in 2023 were reported in the final three months of the year.
Last year, CBS 2 covered the murder of Wadea Al-Fayome, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy, who was stabbed to death by his Plainfield Township landlord who yelled, "you Muslims must die!"
The stabbing death made the cover of CAIR's latest report "FATAL, The Resurgence of Anti-Muslim Hate."
"The heinous murder of the 6-year-old child, in Plainfield, Illinois, represents the point that the U.S.-backed Israel colonization of Palestinians trickles down into the lives of Palestinian Americans, and Muslim Americans more broadly in the United States," said Nadine Naber, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Naber has done extensive research on discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans. She wasn't shocked to see the cases of violence like the stabbing near Plainfield.
Or another incident in Lombard on Oct. 17 in which a man named Larry York was arrested after reportedly threatening to shoot two Muslim men after shouting Islamophobic sentiments at them.
Naber said the complaints CAIR receives are just a fraction of the hate.
"Arab Americans and Muslim Americans tend not to report incidents of hate or racism be out of fear of repercussions and backlash," Naber said.
While the report applauded Illinois for establishing a Muslim-American Heritage Month and for having a religious sports attire inclusion law on the books, nearly 9% of CAIR bias reports involved colleges and universities, which is where Naber said Illinois could still do more.
"Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim students have faced harassment or attack on their campuses and reported those attacks," she said.
The landlord in the Plainfield Township case was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, battery and hate crime charges.
A hate crime charge was also brought against the suspect in Lombard.