Hate crimes against Muslims, Palestinians surge in Chicago: CAIR

A growing number of hate crimes targeting Muslims and Palestinians in the US city of Chicago is raising concerns, according to an official at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Maggie Slavin, operations manager at the CAIR branch in the Midwestern US city, said there has been a 196 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims and Palestinians in the city since last October, when Israel's ongoing offensive against Gaza began.

Slavin said the incidents are occurring in workplaces, schools and public spaces, with individuals facing consequences for expressing solidarity with Gaza and Palestine.

She highlighted that the Muslim American community is facing tight censorship. In workplaces, people are punished for expressing support for Gaza, and on campuses, students face administrative sanctions for advocating Palestinian rights, she added.

She said authorities' response to the increase in hate crimes is "uncertain". While some police departments are co-operative, she said, others require persistent advocacy.

On a recent attack on a Palestinian-owned cafe in the residential area of Uptown, she said the Chicago Police Department initially declined to classify the incident as a hate crime.

"We have to be absolutely relentless until that police department — until the authorities — agree with us that it was a hate crime," she said.

Nabala Cafe, a Palestinian-owned cafe in Uptown that displays a Palestinian flag, was attacked last week.

'Witch hunt'

The rise in anti-Muslim sentiment is also being echoed by the resurgence of federal surveillance. Slavin compared the current atmosphere to the era after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.

"We've gotten a lot of calls about inappropriate interactions from the FBI or from federal authorities … This kind of feels like a witch hunt," she explained.

When the FBI shows up at people's doors, they are frightened and call CAIR to ask what to do, Slavin said. "We haven't seen anything like that," she noted. "That's kind of a very scary new thing that's happening."

She expressed frustration with the misuse of the term "anti-Semitism" to stifle criticism of Israel's policies.

"Actual anti-Semitism, the actual targeting of the Jewish faith, is a threat to us (Muslims), it's a threat to all minorities," she said.

"But when everything is thrown out as, 'Oh, it's anti-Semitic', 'Oh, you're being anti-Semitic', it just whittles that down to not being a serious thing," she underlined.

What they are doing is "a legitimate criticism of Israel's policies" and what Israel has been doing in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, she said.