It would be great if we didn’t need to compile statistics about hate crimes motivated by religious bias. But as long as such crimes are happening, it’s essential to know who’s being targeted.
On Wednesday, according to Jaweed Kaleem, writing in The Huffington Post,
“…an FBI advisory board voted to expand standard hate-crime incident reports used by thousands of police departments across the country to include crimes motivated by bias against the two religious groups, as well as Arabs. […] The FBI currently tracks reports of hate crimes against Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and atheists/agnostics.”
For an explanation of why this move is so important, here’s our recent interview on the subject with Amardeep Singh of the Sikh Coalition.
We taped this in late 2012, when Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois convened a hearing on behalf of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights to look into domestic extremism and hate crimes. Interfaith Alliance was honored to be invited to contribute written testimony for the hearing.
