New Report: Spending Millions in the U.S. to Promote Hate Against Muslims

According to a new report published by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Gender and Race Center at the University of California, Berkeley, 74 groups in the U.S. are somehow involved in "Islamophobia" and are working to promote hatred against Muslims. The British newspaper The Guardian reports that among these 74 groups, the primary focus of 33 groups is to spread "hate" or "bias and prejudice" against Islam and Muslims. The report states that among these groups, "Abstraction Group," "Clarity Project," "David Horowitz Freedom Center," "Middle East Forum," "American Freedom Law Center," "Security Policy Center," "Terrorism Research Project," "Jihad Watch," and the organization "Act! For America" had access to nearly $206 million in funding between 2008 and 2013. The report does not explain why most of these groups, including some media outlets, are on the "Islamophobia" list. It mentions a teacher in Texas accused of spreading "false" information about Islam and promoting "Islamophobia," including statements like: "Followers of Islam say they believe in Christ and respect the Bible, but this is not true," or "Everyone must, willingly or unwillingly, submit to Islam." In some cases, the report concludes that a media outlet promotes "Islamophobia" based on comments from an analyst or critic of Islamism or Islam. Corey Silver, the producer of this report and director of the anti-Islamophobia section of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, states that the hate-mongering of these groups has "real consequences, such as attacks on mosques across the country and new discriminatory laws against Muslims in America." Silver adds that the two institutions "Security Policy Center" and "Act! For America" have the most impact, as they do not limit their anti-Islamic rhetoric to their fringe supporters. The report notes that the two "Security Policy Center" and the "David Horowitz Freedom Center" awarded a certificate of appreciation to Senator Jeff Sessions, who chairs Donald Trump's National Security Advisory Committee and may potentially hold the vice presidency if Trump wins. Following the Orlando massacre in Florida by a Muslim American that resulted in the death of 49 people, Donald Trump once again called for a ban on Muslim immigrants to the U.S., claiming that this could prevent incidents like the Orlando nightclub shooting. Since before Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 until recently, Trump has also insisted that Obama is not a Christian but a Muslim. This is while one of the pillars of the U.S. Constitution, alongside freedom of speech, is freedom of religion and belief, and there is nothing in this law stating that Muslims cannot be elected president of the United States. The joint report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the University of California, Berkeley, published on Monday, also refers to the introduction of "anti-Islamic" bills in the U.S. and the approval of some of these bills. Critics of these bills and laws say that the designers of the bills mean "foreign law" to refer to "Islamic Sharia law" and that they have merely changed the name to avoid conflict with the U.S. Constitution. Opponents of Islam in the U.S. have long claimed that Muslims in this country are seeking to implement Islamic Sharia law in the United States, a claim that several media outlets say has yet to find any evidence to support it. The recent report on the promotion of Islamophobia in the U.S. also mentions 78 attacks on mosques in the U.S. in 2015.