If the latest FBI hate-crime statistics are any
indication, of the 1,314 verified offenses
motivated by religious bias, 68.5 percent were anti-Jewish.

Only 11.1 percent were anti-Islamic, despite
claims of rampant anti-Muslim bigotry in the U.S.
by groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Across the board, hate crimes in the U.S. dropped
last year by 6 percent, according to the 2005 FBI
report release last week, although violence
against people based on their race accounted more
than half of the reported incidents.

Police nationwide reported 7,163 hate crime
incidents in 2005, targeting victims based on
their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual
orientation and disabilities. That was down from
2004, when the FBI reported 7,649 incidents.

The vast majority of hate crimes in both years
were motivated by race, according the reports,
which detailed the data based on so-called
"single-bias" incidents. That means the crime was
motivated by only one kind of bias against the victim, according to the FBI.

Race-based criminal activity accounted for 54.7
percent of hate crimes last year, up slightly
from 52.9 percent in 2004, the FBI found.

Another 17 percent of hate crimes in 2005
targeted victims for their religious beliefs, and
14.2 percent for their sexual orientation.

Victims were assaulted in more than half – 50.7
percent – of the hate crime cases against people.
Six people were murdered and another three were
raped in reported hate crimes last year. The rest
of the victims, or 48.9 percent, were
intimidated, the report shows. The FBI also
looked at hate crime incidents that targeted
property, with 81.3 percent of cases resulting in
damage, destruction or vandalism.

Sixty percent of the known offenders in 2005 were
white, and 20 percent were black, the report showed.

The data was collected from police agencies
across the country, representing city, county,
state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies.

If someone is Arab or appears to be from the Middle East, but isn't Muslim, and suffers a hate crime for appearing to be Muslim, is it a hate crime?

So, if someone who is Jewish is assaulted for appearing Muslim, does it get classified as an anti-Muslim or anti-Jewish hate crime? This is relevant, because, in LA, for example, half the Iranians are Jewish.

It makes sense with the rabidly andti-Muslim media assault these days
http://www.cair.com/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=40805&theType=NB

These issues are exemplify why hate crimes are under-reported. In some cases the answers are obvious- if a swastika is burnt into a synagogue door, for example, or if anti-Muslim graffiti is found on a mosque. But in other cases, questions remain. Local police refused to classify an assault on two Chabad students as a hate crime, because there was no evidence of it as such. It was classified as a random act of violence.

Religious hate seen as motive in killing
Fremont slaying: Muslim leaders and relatives of Afghan American mother shot at point-blank range say only motive they can imagine for anyone wanting her dead was the garment of her faith, her head scarf
- Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writers
Saturday, October 21, 2006

Click to ViewClick to ViewClick to View

Local Muslim leaders on Friday denounced as a likely hate crime the brazen daylight shooting death in Fremont of a mother of six, and police said that they had arrested a parolee described as a "person of interest" in connection with the slaying.

Killed Thursday by a single bullet to the head as she walked with her 3-year-old daughter on a well-to-do residential street, she was distinguished by a hijab, the head scarf worn by some devout Muslim women. The Afghan immigrant had no purse or money on her, family members said.

Stunned relatives and Muslim leaders said the only motive they could see, outside of insanity, would be hatred.

"Whoever did this did not see Alia Ansari, a mother of six children," said Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, one of the nation's most respected Muslim scholars and leaders, who spoke to the media outside of the Ansaris' modest two-bedroom apartment. "He saw a symbol of something that people are taught to hate."

"All that we can assume is that it's a hate crime," said Hassan Ansari, 23, the youngest of Alia Ansari's seven siblings.

Fremont police said Friday that they don't know why Ansari was killed. At about 2:40 p.m. Thursday, she was walking near Central Avenue and Glenmoor Drive with her 3-year-old daughter to pick up two other children from elementary school when a man opened fire before fleeing in a car.

"We still have no definite indication as to motive," said police Sgt. Jeff Swadener, a department spokesman. "Was it racial? Was it a hate crime? Was it a street robbery or a random act of violence? I don't know."

Police said a 27-year-old Fremont man was being held on an unrelated parole violation but remained a person of interest in the homicide. His name wasn't released.

Police detained the man about an hour after the shooting and about a mile away. Officers pulled the man over near Mowry Avenue and Blacow Road because he and his black Toyota Tercel matched the description provided by witnesses, police said.

"We're still up in the air as far as the actual involvement or linking to the homicide," Swadener said.

The Alameda County coroner had planned to do an autopsy Friday, but Ansari's relatives said they want to keep her body intact because of their religious beliefs. A coroner's spokesman declined to discuss the delay but said a decision on how to proceed could be made Monday.

Islam prohibits the desecration of any dead body, said Yusuf, co-founder of the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, believed to be the first Islamic seminary in the nation. In addition, only female relatives are allowed to wash and view a naked female body.

Yusuf said that an autopsy of just Alia Ansari's head, rather than her full body, would be acceptable.

Hassan Ansari, Alia's brother, said family members were planning to take legal action to stop the autopsy, but said they were leaving the decision in the hands of her husband, Ahmadullah Ansari.

Throughout the day, a weeping procession of dozens of relatives and Afghan community members filed into the Ansaris' apartment in the Glenmoor neighborhood of Fremont. It is a short walk from a cluster of Afghan businesses often called Little Kabul, the economic heart of the largest Afghan community in the nation.

Friends and relatives said they could see no reason, other than the head scarf, why a stranger would want to kill Alia Ansari, who was often described as "kind" and "innocent."

Most classical interpretations of Islam require women to wear a head scarf, although only a fraction of American Muslim women wear one, several female Muslim leaders said.

"What happened here is an act of terrorism," said Rona Popal, executive director of the Afghan Coalition, which provides services to the community. "There is no reason to shoot an innocent woman walking down the street, holding her child."

Local Muslim leaders and the victim's relatives attributed blame to an American culture of violence, propagated through movies and video games that reward players for killing. In addition, they said things such as talk radio, politicians and religious zealotry by some Christians had focused on Muslims since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Justice will not be served by merely catching the killer," said Hassan Ansari. "We have to figure out how to stop these kinds of things from happening. ... American society is what feeds people's ignorance."

"Mostly it's the fault of the media, because they show Muslims in such a way that people hate them," said Feraidoon Mojadedi, owner of the Rumi Bookstore in Little Kabul. "People are dying all over the world, but what did she have to do with it? She's a housewife, a mother of children."

Three women at the Islamic Society of the East Bay said they would continue to wear head scarves even if the killing was a hate crime. "Even if they wiped out everyone on Earth, I would not remove the hijab," said Suzanne Azim, 43, a Hayward resident.

Alia Ansari, 37, had lived in the United States since 1986 and had become a U.S. citizen, family members said. Like many Afghan Americans, Ansari was a refugee from the war against the Soviet Union. She came from Mazar-e Sharif, where her sole sister still lives.

She typically drove to pick up two of her daughters from Glenmoor Elementary School, but left home on foot Thursday because of engine trouble. Witnesses said a man got out of a car, approached her and shot her at point-blank range before returning to the car and speeding away.

The young daughter who was with Ansari was unharmed, Swadener said.

When Ansari was shot, her daughter began crying and later told her family over and over, "A man killed my mother," said Hassan Ansari.

Maria Garcia, who lives across the street from where the shooting occurred, said, "I didn't see what happened but I heard the gunfire, and I heard the crying of the child."

The slaying marks the second time someone in the victim's family has been shot and killed in Fremont. In January 2002, Afghan community leader Rahim Ansari, 34, of Union City was shot and killed inside his business, Pamir Travel, in Little Kabul.

The suspected gunman in that incident, upset over a spurned romance, also wounded Rahim Ansari's brother-in-law, Zabiullah Ansari, a second-cousin of Alia Ansari. In an interview Friday, Zabiullah Ansari, 48, expressed hope that the right person had been arrested. But he said, "They don't know what happened.

"You're killed in front of your kid -- how can people do that? They're not human beings. This lady was totally innocent. Why did someone shoot her? "

E-mail the writers at mkuruvila@sfchronicle.com and hlee@sfchronicle.com.

Page B - 1
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/21/BAGMTLTGM51.DTL

It seems with the level of hate spewed by right wing media since 9-11, that it owuld be expected-neverhteless, sad.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7809537/

One of South Africa's most senior Muslim clerics has been denied entry into the United States, prompting questions from San Francisco Bay area Muslims who invited him to participate in activities marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Fazlur Rahman Azmi, deputy leader of the Gauteng-based Jamiatul Ulema Transvaal, was detained by US Customs and Border Protection officials when he arrived at San Francisco International Airport from London.

Azmi, who had made previous visits to the country as recently as April without problems, was questioned for hours. He was then denied entry and sent on a plane out of the country on Saturday, said the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties group.

....

Nawaz Khan of the Fremont, California-based Islamic Society of East Bay, whose members waited at the airport on Friday while officials questioned Azmi, said: "There's nothing suspicious about him. He is not involved in any political groups. All he does is teach at the mosque and pray."

Khan said no one from the group was allowed to speak to Azmi or provide food for the 60-year-old man, who is diabetic and was fasting during the day in observance of Ramadan.

Officials only gave Azmi chips and water, he said.

"The way visiting Islamic leaders are treated by American authorities can send either a positive or negative message to Muslims worldwide," CAIR spokesperson Ibrahim Hooper said. "So far, the message in this case has been negative."

More
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=14&click_id=6&art_id=vn20061023012257695C395307

Who's hated the most? is this what you're down to now? "We're hated more than you are"? my god.

Q: How many hate crimes against women in California were there in 2005? A: 4. Anyone believe that one?

There were roughly 5800 forcible rapes of women in California in 2005. Charles Carl Roberts IV didn't commit a hate crime, did he? No, he was just crazy. Ask the raped women of Darfur, Atenco, Iraq, Kashmir, the U.S., Congo, Mannar, Mexico--were they hated for being women, when they were assaulted? Nooooo, say governments everywhere.

My vote--women are hated most. Now, get on with your squabble about who's hated second most.