A brand new report revealed that organizations deemed Islamophobic by the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group obtained greater than $105 million in donations from U.S. charities between 2017 and 2019.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) stated in a Jan. 11 report titled “Islamophobia within the Mainstream” that it studied the tax data of fifty organizations it had beforehand recognized as the biggest funders of anti-Muslim causes, and located that 35 of them have been the supply of a complete of $105 million directed at such teams. CAIR has researched Islamophobia within the U.S. for many years and has been on the forefront of high-profile authorized battles involving violations of Muslims’ spiritual liberties. For the needs of its analysis, CAIR identifies organizations as Islamophobic in the event that they help insurance policies that result in discrimination in opposition to Muslims, demean Muslims due to their faith or allege that Islam represents an existential risk to the U.S (or accomplice with different organizations that do).
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“It is rather essential to not solely observe individuals who commit hate crimes, however the individuals whose cash contributes to the rise in hate crimes,” says CAIR’s deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell. “If anti-Muslim hate teams are getting funding from mainstream foundations, that’s very regarding.”
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CAIR’s new report builds upon a longstanding physique of analysis by the group and different establishments that highlights how cash is funneled towards anti-Muslim teams. A collection of studies referred to as Worry, Inc., revealed by the progressive assume tank Middle for American Progress in 2011 and 2015, have been among the many first to map out the difficulty intimately and located that eight charitable foundations spent $57 million between 2001 and 2012 to help the unfold of anti-Muslim rhetoric. A 2019 report by CAIR discovered that the full income of anti-Muslim particular curiosity teams surpassed $1.5 billion between 2014 and 2016. Mitchell notes that whereas 15 of the highest 50 charities CAIR recognized as giving to Islamophobic teams in 2014-2016 didn’t accomplish that in 2017-2019, the present quantity remains to be “very vital and really regarding.”
“There completely is that this refined, orchestrated community of activists, politicians and media personalities which are working in coordination as this echo chamber to push out anti-Muslim rhetoric and coverage,” says Yasmine Taeb, a human rights lawyer who co-authored the 2015 Worry, Inc. report.
CAIR’s analysis discovered that the charity group Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism Inc. donated extra to particular curiosity teams CAIR recognized as Islamophobic than different charities did by a major margin—the donations have been near $20 million yearly between 2017 and 2019. Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Mitchell emphasizes that it’s doable that some donors have no idea their cash is getting used to perpetuate Islamophobia. Of the 35 organizations CAIR recognized as giving funds to anti-Muslim teams, a handful have been donor-advised funds, that means that donors can counsel how they need their cash to be directed however the fund finally decides how donations are spent. Contributors to those funds are sometimes nameless, making it much more troublesome to trace donations. “That’s a part of the explanation why we do that report, in order that there’s no excuse,” Mitchell says. CAIR hopes to create transparency so donors can take larger accountability, he provides.
In its report, CAIR urged the philanthropic neighborhood to ascertain clear insurance policies to make sure funds aren’t directed towards anti-Muslim teams and to teach their staff and boards in regards to the extent of anti-Muslim bigotry. The final word aim, Mitchell says, is to cut back the specter of Islamophobia confronted by American Muslims.
