Sikhs third most targeted religious group in US after Jews, Muslims: FBI report

Around 60 incidents of hate crimes against Sikhs were reported to US Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2018, making community third most commonly targeted religious group after Jews and Muslims in US, according to an annual report released by FBI on Tuesday.

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Third highest targets

A total of 7,120 hate crimes were reported to FBI by law enforcement ncies around country last year, slightly down from 7,175 in 2017, FBI said, adding that this involved 8,496 offenses. largest number of hate crimes based on religion were reported against Jews (835), followed by Muslims (188) and Sikhs (60). According to FBI report, 91 hate crimes were reported against or religion, including 12 against Hindus and ten anti-Buddhist crimes.

Of 4,047 hate crimes based on ethnicity, maximum 1943 hate crime incidents were against anti-Black or African Americans, followed by anti-White (762) and anti-Hispanic or Lati (485).

FBI reports as many as 148 hate crimes against Asians in 2018, while those against Arabs were 82, anti-American Indian or Alaska Native (194). Sikh Coalition in a statement said it is "disheartening" that hate crimes remain systematically "under-reported" across United States.

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According to Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, Americans experience an aver of 250,000 hate crimes per year; this latest FBI data, by contrast, only mand to document 7,120 incidents, with less than 13 per cent of law enforcement affirmatively providing reports of hate crimes, it said. "While hate crimes remained relatively steady nationally, reported anti-Sikh hate crimes rose by 200 percent since 2017, making Sikhs third most commonly targeted religious group in dataset," it said.

At end of day, this data simply isn't giving us accurate information we need to effectively counteract hate against targeted communities, said Sim J. Singh, Sikh Coalition senior manr of Policy and Advocacy. It's past time for action. Congress must pass next generation of common-sense legislation that equips law enforcement to better identify and track hate incidents," he said

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