“South Asian communities are being targeted in a way that we have not seen since immediately after 9/11,” says a statement released by South Asian Bar Association of America.
The association is “disheartened by the numbers”.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation compiles its hate crime statistics from police reports and South Asian communities are not tracked as a separate category. The association has studied the report and compared the numbers from 2015.
Incidents targeting Asians generally increased from 111 to 113 – a 2% increase.
Incidents targeting Arabs increased from 37 to 51 – a 38% increase.
Incidents targeting Muslims increased from 257 to 307 – a 19% increase.
Incidents targeting Hindus increased from 5 to 10 – a 100% increase.
Incidents targeting Sikhs increased from 6 to 7 – a 17% increase.
Overall, this represents a 5% overall increase in incidents affecting these communities.
Rishi Bagga, president of the South Asian Bar Association, said in the statement that people need to speak out and support each other.
“These statistics confirm the uneasy feelings of many of our community members, that we are being targeted. We must work with law enforcement, including reporting hate crimes when they occur. We must speak out. And most importantly, we must support each other,” said Bagga.
FBI report suggests that hate crimes have increased in 2016 compared to previous years. The number of hate crimes reported in 2016 rose by 4.6 percent compared to 2015. More than half of those incidents were motivated by the victim’s race, according to the report. Close to 59 per cent were targeted because of their race. 21.1 per cent of the victims were targeted because of religion and 16.7 because of sexual orientation.
