FBI - Hate crimes surged in '01

WASHINGTON -- Muslims and people who are or appear to be of Middle Eastern descent were reported as victims of hate crimes more often last year than ever before, a consequence of the fear and suspicion that followed the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the FBI said Monday.

Although the number of incidents has tapered off, many Muslims remain worried about a new backlash if the United States goes to war with Iraq or is hit with another major terror attack mounted by Islamic extremists.

"There's a great deal of apprehension in the Muslim community as to the demonization of Islam," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "A lot of us feel that our patriotism is always suspect."

The FBI's annual hate crimes report found that incidents targeting people, institutions and businesses identified with the Islamic faith increased from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001 -- a jump of 1,600 percent. Muslims previously had been among the least-targeted religious groups.

The statistics did not specify how many of the 481 occurred after Sept. 11, 2001.

Hate crimes against people because of their ethnicity or national origin -- those not Hispanic, not black and not Asian or American Indian -- more than quadrupled from 354 in 2000 to 1,501 in 2001. This category includes people of Middle Eastern origin.

The increases, the FBI said, happened "presumably as a result of the heinous incidents that occurred on Sept. 11."

Hooper said the FBI figures probably represent only a small portion of the true number of hate crimes.

Hate crimes, defined as a crime motivated by prejudice, are somewhat subjective, because many times they result from witness and victim accounts rather than a police investigation. Overall allegations of crime motivated by hate rose just over 17 percent from 2000 to 2001, from 8,063 to 9,730 incidents -- still only a fraction of the 11.8 million serious crimes reported to the FBI last year.