Over 80% of Washington State Muslims Report Facing Islamophobia
Muslim communities have had a tough year. Many are personally and spiritually invested in the Israeli regime's war on Gaza, which had a resurgence on Oct. 7, 2023. As US President-elect Donald Trump readies for his return to the Oval Office, bitter memories of his first term are resurfacing — including a travel ban in Jan. 2017 that barred people from seven Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States.
Elected officials in Washington were vehemently opposed to the "Muslim ban" — several of them, along with immigration organizations and over a thousand citizens, spoke out at Sea-Tac International Airport against the Trump administration's executive order. Gov. Jay Inslee compared the discriminatory policy to the 1942 executive order to forcibly remove and incarcerate the West Coast Japanese American communities. He called the event "religious discrimination." The then-attorney general turned state Governor-elect Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit against Trump in response to the ban.
Still, according to a November survey from the Council on American-Islamic Relations Washington, approximately 83% of Muslims in the state have been victims of Islamophobia in the past year.
"As somebody who is dealing with the community on a front line, this just reaffirms our suspicions all along," said Imraan Siddiqi, the executive director of CAIR-WA. "It also exposes the gap that exists with policymakers, institutions, law enforcement agencies, where they're not necessarily creating venues for any type of recourse for the people who have experienced [Islamophobia]."
It's estimated that 80,000 to 100,000 Muslims live in Washington, with the majority residing in King County. There have been several particularly violent incidents of heightened Islamophobia this year. In June, a 17-year-old Muslim youth who sought to return a toy gun to a sports store was shot to death in Renton. A Muslim woman's hijab was stolen from her head at knifepoint while she was at work in Seattle's University District in February.
"These events and others like it have shown us it's not just Islamophobic rhetoric that we're seeing," said Adam Jamal, an imam at the Muslim Association of Puget Sound (MAPS). "It's not just threats, but it's actual actions that people are taking against Muslims."
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The report found that about 69% of the approximately 500 respondents experienced discriminatory policies or practices at school or the workplace, such as not being given time to pray. Siddiqi said another way this can come into effect is through doxxing — people will use their company platforms for doxxing purposes, and people have also been doxxed through WhatsApp.
Islamophobic incidents have appeared to have exacerbated since the war in Gaza has continued. About 39% of respondents said they had experienced heightened discrimination since Oct. 7, 2023, and a little over half said their rights to free speech and expression had been limited or denied. The data was collected in April 2024, six months after the beginning of Israel's war on the Gaza Strip.
One way that Siddiqi notes activism for Palestine has been limited is on the policy level — a bill, HR 9495, passed in the U.S. House on Nov. 21 that would allow the treasury secretary to strip a nonprofit of its status if it is deemed as a "terrorism supporting" organization. The bill was introduced amid demonstrations and encampments on college campuses across the country protesting against the war in Gaza. "Many people know the Muslim community is very passionate about Palestine, does a lot of charity for Palestine," Siddiqi said. "The historic weaponization of Islamophobia on a structural level oftentimes tries to punish this type of activism for the ability to stand up for those who are standing up for Palestinian rights."
Katie Walker, the communications director of CAIR-WA, said the end of 2023 and 2024 have been the busiest years for both CAIR-WA and CAIR as a national organization in receiving reports of bias and hate and requests for help in navigating this. In 2023, CAIR received over 8,000 complaints of anti-Muslim incidents.
"People who feel unsafe more often in their day-to-day lives were less likely to plan to vote in the 2024 general election," Walker said.
With Trump taking office in January, there's anxiety around how the already existing issue of Islamophobia will worsen.
"The memory of the [Muslim ban] has been what's alarming people and stressing them out," Jamal said. "It was Washington State that fought against the Muslim ban the first time. We're hopeful that we live in a place that could potentially defend our rights to exist, but also worried that may or may not be enough in terms of a second term."
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Combating discrimination against any group, especially on a systemic level, is complicated. But Jamal said one way to do so is through partnership with community groups and members. Additionally, Walker noted that Washington has strong anti-discrimination laws in place — but it's a matter of enforcing those laws.
"It is imperative that all of our elected officials and appointed officials, people in power, are taking Muslim experiences seriously and into consideration when they are writing recommendations, writing guidance and developing policy solutions, because of the lived experience of these communities, and also because of the diversity of this group," Walker said. "If they are bringing Muslim voices into the conversation and taking their Muslim constituents into consideration, the policy solutions will only be more equitable and better, especially because of how diverse this group is and its many intersections with other marginalized communities."
Source: The South Seattle Emerald
