At a meeting with White House advisers on Monday, the leader of a Muslin group urged the federal government to prosecute violence against Muslims as hate crimes, citing an uptick in incidents since the Paris terrorist attacks.
“We believe the level of hate violence has reached a crisis point, and that’s why it’s crucial that the federal government needs to send a message to the public, in the strongest terms, that these hate crimes will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy group in San Francisco, told the New York Times after the meeting.
Khera told the Times that Muslim Advocates has seen 50 attacks on Muslims reported since the Paris attacks — an average of two per day.
About a dozen Muslim leaders met with White House senior advisers on Monday to discuss an uptick in violence against and hateful rhetoric about Muslims, according to the Times.
“They were expressing a genuine concern about the environment of anti-Muslim hate and violence, and really wanted to hear from the community about the impact and what the federal government can do,” Khera told the Times about the White House representatives comments during the meeting.
She said the group discussed a plan for the Education Department to give guidance to school on how to handle anti-Muslim bullying.
Since the shooting in San Bernardino, Muslims and mosques throughout the U.S. have been targeted with vandalism, threats, and violence.
