5% dip yet Sikhs remain 3rd most targeted group in US, reveals FBI data
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Bathinda: Sikhs continue to be the third most targeted group under religiously motivated hate crime in the US, after Jews and Muslims, says data released by FBI on Wednesday.
The FBI released its annual report of hate crime statistics for 2024 on Aug 5, noting a drop of nearly 2% in the number of incidents, says the Sikh advocacy group, Sikh Coalition.
The Coalition says 142 religiously motivated hate-crime victimizations against Sikhs have been reported — down from 150 in 2023 (a drop of 5.3%) and 198 in 2022 . Twenty-five anti Hindu crimes were also reported in the year. down from 32 the previous year.
The same year, 1,938 crimes against Jews were recorded, down from 1,989 in 2023; so were 228 anti-Islamic crimes, down from 281 in 2023.
The FBI began collecting data about more categories of religiously motivated hate crimes in 2015.
Sikh Coalition says that hate remains an urgent policy priority in the United States and Sikhs remain disproportionately under threat. The data underscores the need for stronger initiatives by the federal government.
It argues that FBI's hate crime data remains incomplete so long as hate crime reporting is not mandated and undertaken with serious care and standardized processes across the country. The Sikh Coalition and other leading civil rights organizations continue to document additional inaccuracies in hate crime reporting.
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