The FBI stopped gathering information about hate crimes years ago
Up First Briefing: Truce in Gaza extended for 7th day; Henry Kissinger dies at 100 (Anth Up First briefing: Twice is an option)
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Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend the cease-fire for a seventh day in hopes of getting more aid to Gaza and an exchange of prisoners. The extension comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the region for his third trip since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
The Hunting for Anti-Arab Hate Crimes: A Commentary on Tatreez and the Life of a Palestinian Artist
Kissinger was a giant figure in U.S. foreign policy. He sought Kissinger’s help a month ago. Kissinger was secretary of state and national security adviser to two presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He played a major role in U.S. relations with Russia, formerly known as the Soviet Union, China and major Arab nations. The House is due to vote today on the issue of expelling GeorgeSantos. According to the report from the House ethics committee, he is facing more than 20 federal criminal charges.
The Justice Department announced charges yesterday against an Indian national for his alleged involvement in a murder-for-hire scheme. The leader of the Sikh movement in the US was the subject of a plan to be assassinated. Court documents do not specify the intended victim, but Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the general counsel for the advocacy group Sikhs for Justice, said on X that he was the target.
The shooting of three men of Palestinian descent in Vermont this weekend is thought to be hate-motivated by their families. But investigators say they don’t have enough evidence to determine a motive. Odette Yousef explains how difficult the tracking of anti-Arab hate crimes is.
Linah Mohammad was 10 years old when she first learned of tatreez, a Palestinian art form. She practiced with her grandma in her home in Jordan. After moving to Washington, D.C., Mohammad reconnected with the art. She writes about the benefits of tatreez, and how it helps her find her way back home.
Do you really like what you do? Anti-Arab hate crimes against Sikhs and Arabs in Chittenden County, California
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“Although we do not yet have evidence to support a hate crime enhancement, I do want to be clear that there is no question that this was a hateful act,” said Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George during a press conference on Monday.
Nonetheless, the men’s families are pushing to have the attack prosecuted as a hate crime. Kinnan Abdelhamid was released from the hospital on Monday. His parents said in a statement that they are worried about Hisham Awartani and his friends, who remain hospitalized.
Many think that there continues to be a severe under reporting of incidents despite the introduction of the anti-Arab hate crime category. There were less than 100 hate crimes targeting Arabs and fewer than 200 against Muslims in the last three years. The experts say that this issue is more pronounced in the Arab- and Muslim-American community.
“The Anti-Arab category is, frankly, a newer one,” said Maya Berry, executive director of the AAI. “And it creates a very real challenge in the problem of getting accurate data about us that way.”
The omission of the category meant that even during periods when it was known that anti-Arab sentiment was high, such as during the period after the 9/11 attacks, there was no measurement of the scale of the backlash. Berry said it could have implications for law enforcement’s sensitizing to anti-Arab bias.
“It also impacts the training that local law enforcement is going to receive about how to engage in local communities,” she said. It may not be possible to identify a hate crime if law enforcement training does not include it.
In 2015, Bias Code 31 was reintroduced into the national reports after a horrible attack on a Sikh house of worship. Six people were killed in 2012 when a white supremacist opened fire at a Sikh gurdwara. The incident prompted several organizations to push for a broadening of bias motivation categories in the UCR system. Along with the anti-Arab Bias Code 31, codes were also added to document anti-Mormon, anti-Jehovah’s Witness, anti-Eastern Orthodox, anti-Other Christian, Anti-Buddhist, anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh crimes.
“Anti-Muslim hate crimes pose a real difficulty because of an attenuated relationship with law enforcement, with immigration authorities, language barriers among other things,” said Brian Levin, former founding director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
Levin said that post-9/11 surveillance programs undermined the trust that Arab and Muslim communities otherwise might have built with local and federal law enforcement.
Source: For years, the FBI quietly stopped tracking anti-Arab violence and hate crimes
“It’s a mixed bag,” he explained in a recent conference on heavy ion collisions at CERN SPS
“So I really think when we’re looking at this, we have to remember that there are certain communities where underreporting, I believe, is far more rampant than in other communities,” he said.
