AP Reports Bogus Muslim Study as News

This headline caught my eye. I thought we were over our anger and bias. How disturbing that the trend has reversed. Then I read the article.

Crimes, Complaints Involving Muslims Rise

The number of reported bias crimes and civil rights violations committed against Muslims in the United States soared to its highest level last year since the period immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new report finds.

The report by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations…

Stop! It’s CAIR again. Of course the Associated Press is regurgitating it as though its news. I thought it was a federal study. Oh well. I got this far. Lets read on.

The study, involving cases that were reported to the council by individuals and organizations, will be released Wednesday at a news conference in Washington, D.C. An advance copy was obtained by The Associated Press.

So CAIR sent you a study of cases reported to them, not to the authorites, and you ate it up. Nice job AP.

"We believe the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes and in the total number of civil rights cases, both of which will be outlined in our news conference, can be attributed at least in part to rising Islamophobic rhetoric in American society," said Arsalan Iftikhar, the council's legal director.

Islamophobic? Does that mean fear of being blown to bits? Maybe Islamistophobic would be a better word. I can’t find either word in the dictionary.

The council counted 1,522 incidents in which Muslims reported their civil rights had been violated in 2004, a 49 percent increase over 2003. Another 141 incidents of confirmed or suspected bias crimes were committed against Muslims, a 52 percent rise.

Notable bias or discrimination cases cited in the report include the barring of singer Cat Stevens and Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States and the arrest of a Muslim lawyer from Oregon jailed as a "material witness" in the terrorist bombing of Madrid trains based on a fingerprint that turned out to belong to someone else.

Well there you go! CAIR has counted the government’s actions in its effort to protect US citizens as civil rights violations or hate crimes. No wonder the numbers went up. Many innocent Muslims have been caught up in the War on Terror, including the ones that have been incorrectly flagged as security risks. But they don’t mention that point.

This article reads as though fleets of rusting pickups filled with bat wielding good ole boys are out looking to bash some heads. And the willing Associated Press ate it up and spit it right back out as legitimate. I think I will make up another term now since I’m on a roll. Report Laundering. Oh, the AP did drop this little nugget all the way down at the bottom of the page:

The most recent FBI report on hate crimes, issued last November and covering 2003, found that anti-Islamic crimes remained at the about same level — 149 — as the year before. The FBI report was drawn from information submitted by more than 11,900 law enforcement agencies around the country.