WASHINGTON: The number of anti-Muslim hate groups in the United States has nearly tripled since 2015, due in part to radical Islamic attacks and the incendiary rhetoric of last year’s presidential campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center said Wednesday in a new report.
The number of anti-Muslim groups increased from 34 in 2015 to 101 in 2016, the SPLC said. The number of hate groups overall tracked by the watchdog group also increased to 917 last year from 892 the previous year, the report said.
“2016 was an unprecedented year for hate,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The report blamed the increase in part on “incendiary rhetoric” from the campaign of now-President Donald Trump, which included threats to ban Muslim immigrants and “mandate a registry of Muslims in America.” It also cited as factors “the unrelenting propaganda of a growing circle of well-paid ideologues” — well-paid employees of anti-Muslim groups, the group said — and radical Islamist attacks such as the June 2016 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
The SPLC’s findings come as anti-Muslim posters were discovered this week at a mosque in Bossier City, Louisiana, and on the campuses of the University of Texas and Rutgers University.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations wants campus officials to assure the safety of Muslim students and to investigate the mosque posters as a hate crime. “It is clear that these signs, which were used to vandalize a house of worship, are part of a nationwide campaign by racists and Islamophobes to intimidate the American Muslim community,” spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, monitors the activities of hate groups and other extremists across the country. The SPLC defines hate groups as those that vilify entire groups of people based on immutable characteristics such as race or ethnicity.
“Patriot” or anti-government groups are on the downswing, according to the report. “The groups had skyrocketed from a low of 149 in 2008 to a high of 1,360 in 2012, in large part as a reaction to the November 2008 election of Barack Obama,” the report said.
But now the number of Patriot groups is falling, dropping from 998 in 2015 to 623 last year. Militias, which the report called the “armed wing of the Patriot movement,” also fell from 276 to 165 groups.
Black separatist groups grew from 180 in 2015 to 193 last year, as did neo-Confederate groups, which rose from 35 to 43 groups.
The number of Ku Klux Klan groups fell from 190 in 2015 to 130 in 2016. The report said contraction was expected among Klan groups, which had more than doubled from 72 in 2014.
Southern Poverty Law Center: number of anti-Muslim hate groups on the rise
Southern Poverty Law Center: number of anti-Muslim hate groups on the rise
International baby milk recall leads to French legal action
- Eight French families have joined a lawsuit filed by Foodwatch
- The complaint, while not naming the manufacturers or government agencies, calls for a legal investigation
PARIS: A recall of potentially contaminated infant milk formula in some 60 countries has taken a legal turn in France after a watchdog and eight families filed a lawsuit accusing manufacturers and the government of acting too slowly.
Eight French families, who said their babies suffered severe digestive problems after drinking formula named in the recall, have joined a lawsuit filed by Foodwatch, which AFP has seen.
The complaint, while not naming the manufacturers or government agencies, calls for a legal investigation.
Foodwatch, a European consumer association, believes that producers could not have ignored the risks to babies by leaving their milk on sale in France and in more than a dozen European countries, as well as in Australia, Russia, Qatar or Egypt.
Several manufacturers, including giants like Nestle, Danone, and Lactalis have issued recalls of infant formula in more than 60 countries, including France, since December due to a risk of cereulide contamination.
Cereulide, a toxin produced by certain bacteria, is “likely to cause primarily digestive problems, such as vomiting or diarrhea,” according to the French health ministry, though it said last week it so far had not determined a link to the symptoms experienced by the infants.
In the complaint, Foodwatch accuses milk powder manufacturers of delaying action between the initial warnings in December and the recalls, some of which were not widely publicized. They became more widespread in January.
Foodwatch believes that parents were told too little, too late, and in a confusing manner. French agriculture minister Annie Genevard said however that procedures had been “very well followed.”
Two separate criminal investigations have already been opened in France following the deaths of two infants who consumed infant formula recalled by Nestle due to “possible contamination” by a bacterial substance, although no “causal link” has yet been established, according to authorities.
Authorities are accused in the Foodwatch complaint of delaying action and of deficiencies in their controls.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) announced meanwhile that it had been asked by the European Commission to establish a standard for cereulide in children’s products. It will issue an opinion on February 2.
