The number of hate crimes in major U.S. cities rose for the third consecutive year last year, driven by attacks on Jews, Muslims, blacks and LGBT people, preliminary police data exclusively provided to VOA show.

At least 1,056 hate crimes were committed in nine of nation’s largest cities in 2017, an increase of 18 percent from 2016 levels, according to police data compiled by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino.

Several major metropolitan areas, such as Washington, Philadelphia, Seattle and Phoenix, reported double-digit increases in hate-based crimes, extending a trend that started in 2015 and accelerated during the contentious presidential election campaign in 2016.

Among the nation’s five largest cities, the overall increase in hate crimes was smaller; however, the number of reported incidents rose to 719 from 664, an uptick of 8 percent.

​Two declines

The slower rate of increase in those five cities was attributable to two notable declines.

New York City, the nation’s largest city, reported 339 hate crimes, a notch lower than 2016 levels, while Chicago, the third largest U.S. city, recorded 50 hate crimes through the first three-quarters of the year, a decline of 7 percent from the same period in 2016.

But the trajectory of hate crimes remains pointed upward, with 2017 likely to show another moderate rise after similar increases the past two years.

“Whether you have increases or declines, a lot of these cities are at or near multiyear highs,” said Brian Levin, director of the center for the study of hate and extremism.

Hate crime data are notoriously unreliable. The FBI publishes annual hate crime stats collected from thousands of police departments, but reporting is voluntary and most agencies don’t report any incidents.

The FBI’s report also lags by about a year. Its most recent report, released in November, showed there were 6,121 hate crimes in 2016, up 4.6 percent from 5,850 in 2015.

The FBI defines a hate crime as a criminal offense motivated by the victim’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity or gender identity.

Historically, race has been by far the biggest motivator of hate crime in the United States, with blacks accounting for more than half the victims of race-based offenses.

Religion and sexual orientation are the next two drivers, although in recent years religion-based hate crimes have grown, with crimes targeting Muslims nearly doubling between 2014 and 2016.

In 2017, Jews and the LGBT community accounted for more than half of hate crime victims in the cities surveyed by Levin’s center. Blacks, nationally the most frequent target of hate crime, ranked No. 3, while Muslims, who account for 1 percent of the U.S. population, were at No. 4.

​Homicides

The year was one of the deadliest for victims of hate crimes in more than a decade. At least 12 people were killed in nine separate suspected hate crimes, according to an unofficial tally by the San Bernardino center, although Levin stressed the actual number could turn out to be much higher.

The FBI reported five hate crime killings in 2016 and 19 in 2015, when white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The victims of the 2017 murders included four blacks, three whites, three Middle Easterners/Muslims, one gay man, and one transgender person.

Levin said there was “an alarming increase” in fatal attacks on transgender people. The rights group Human Rights Campaign noted a record 28 transgender murders in 2017, but only one has been labeled a hate crime.

Anti-LGBT crimes

Gay-friendly cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Washington have become magnets for violent homophobes.

In Washington, nearly one-third of all hate crimes in 2017 were directed at gays, while in Seattle more than a quarter of hate crime victims were gay. San Francisco data were not available.

​Anti-Semitic bias

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization, recorded 1,299 anti-Semitic incidents during the first three-quarters of last year, an increase of 67 percent from the same period in 2016.

The figure included 168 bomb threats made against Jewish community centers and other organizations. In March, a U.S.-Israeli teen, accused of making most of the threats, was arrested in Israel.

“The bomb threats were an incredibly traumatic event for Jews across the country,” said Aryeh Tuchman, associate director of ADL’s center on extremism.

Among the incidents recorded by ADL were 703 incidents of harassment, 584 instances of vandalism, and 12 physical assaults.

States with the largest Jewish populations reported the highest number of anti-Semitic incidents. New York state led with a total of 267 incidents, followed by California with 197 incidents.

But not everything recorded by ADL was a hate crime, Tuchman said.

Levin said, “The prominence of anti-Semitic incidents in big cities is attributable to multiple factors far beyond the actions of a couple of offenders.”

​Anti-Muslim hate crimes

There were 195 anti-Muslim hate crimes through the first nine months of 2017, a 20 percent increase from the same period in 2016, according to the rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations.

California led the nation with 73 incidents, followed by New York with 20 hate crimes, Florida with 11 incidents and Texas with nine hate incidents, according to CAIR. All four states have large Muslim populations.

Zainab Arain, research and advocacy coordinator for CAIR, attributed the relatively large number of incidents recorded in California and New York to the group’s large footprint and advocacy in those states.

“There is a likelihood of cases being reported more frequently” in California and New York, Arain said.

Property damage and physical assault were the most common hate crimes committed against Muslims.

The FBI reported in November that hate crimes against Muslims rose by nearly 20 percent in 2016 after jumping 67 percent in 2015.

Attacks against Muslims tend to be more violent than those against Jews, Levin said. That is partly because Muslims are “more identifiable when in religious attire and have a much higher degree of prejudice directed towards them,” he said.

In April, for example, a hijab-wearing woman was assaulted by a white man in downtown Los Angeles. A suspect was arrested.

In August, a Somali-American mosque was bombed in Bloomington, Minnesota. No one was hurt.
…

your ad here

Two U.S. senators have called for a criminal investigation of a former British spy who authored a salacious report about Donald Trump when he was a businessman, a report known as the Steele Dossier.

The letter, released on Friday by Republicans Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham, adds to the turmoil that has plagued the Trump administration and will likely deepen the bipartisan rancor in Congress over both the dossier and also interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials. 

In their letter, the two called on the Justice Department to investigate Christopher Steele for what they alleged were false statements Steele made about how the dossier was circulated. 

“This referral does not pertain to the veracity of claims contained in the dossier,” the senators said in a statement.

Steele and his lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment. 

Former British spy

Steele, a former MI6 officer with deep experience in Russia, was hired by a Washington-based political research firm known as Fusion GPS in the summer 2016. 

Fusion had earlier been retained by a Republican donor interested in gathering embarrassing political dirt on Trump, but after Trump won the Republican nomination, Fusion was hired by a law firm with connections to the Democratic Party. 

Steele’s research, which focused on Russia and Trump’s ties there, resulted in a 35-page report that circulated among political operatives and reporters in Washington for months until BuzzFeed published the entire dossier online in January 2017. 

News reports have said the FBI had considered paying Steele for more research but later decided not to. 

Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations in the dossier. Some Republicans have also asserted that the dossier was what prompted the FBI to open its criminal investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s interactions with Trump-connected officials, something contradicted by court documents and other public statements. 

Grassley calls for inquiry

Grassley, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, earlier called for a Justice Department investigation of Fusion GPS, suggesting the firm was involved in a Russian-linked lobbying campaign to undermine the 2012 U.S. Magnitsky Act, which punishes Russians deemed to be human rights abusers. 

In an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Tuesday, the founders of Fusion GPS accused Republican lawmakers of trying to obscure Trump’s Russian connections and called on Grassley to release transcripts of their testimony to the Judiciary Committee. 

The Judiciary Committee is one of three congressional panels investigating interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials. 

The FBI probe, now taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, has resulted in two indictments and two guilty pleas, including from Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
…

your ad here

Nearly 4,000 companies and 170,000 people will descend on Las Vegas next week for CES, the massive consumer electronics show. For many small technology companies, the event is a big opportunity to raise their profile. VOA’s Michelle Quinn visits one San Francisco company to learn how they prepare for “the Super Bowl of conferences.”
…

your ad here

The United States said its decision to suspend military aid to Pakistan will cost Islamabad just under $2 billion, as top officials from both countries engaged in a war of words Friday over differences in how to fight terrorism.

“There has been ample time for Pakistan to show that it is taking our requests seriously,” a senior U.S. administration official said. “We have made very clear what our expectations are. Unfortunately, we have not seen the type of meaningful action we are seeking.”

The Trump administration announced Thursday that it was freezing military aid to Pakistan and said it would remain frozen until Islamabad took “decisive action” against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network.

The funding freeze affects $1 billion for military equipment and another $900 million in payments to defray the cost of counterterrorism operations, officials said Friday.

Pakistan: US move undermines cooperation

But Pakistan’s military dismissed the U.S. action as a meaningless deterrent that would serve only to undermine security cooperation and regional peace efforts.

“Pakistan never fought for money but for peace,” army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor told VOA.

Ghafoor also denied U.S. allegations that Pakistan was giving either the Taliban or the Haqqanis any sort of safe haven from which they can attack U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Military-led counterterrorism operations, Ghafoor said, have targeted terrorists “indiscriminately,” including the Haqqani network at a “heavy cost of blood and treasure.” He insisted there were no more “organized” terrorist sanctuaries inside Pakistan.

“Casting doubts on our will is not good to our common objective of moving toward enduring peace and stability. Pakistan shall continue its sincere efforts in [the] best interest of Pakistan and peace,” the army spokesman said.

In a separate statement Friday, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry criticized the U.S. for “arbitrary deadlines” and “unilateral pronouncements.” It asserted that Islamabad has fought the anti-terrorism war “largely” from its own financial resources.

“Emergence of new and more deadly groups such as Daesh in Afghanistan call for enhancing international cooperation,” the Pakistani statement said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

And the ministry called U.S. pressure “counterproductive in addressing common threats.”

Trump tweet

The war of words between the two allies was triggered Monday when U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to slash funding for Pakistan, accusing it on Twitter of providing a haven to terrorists and playing U.S. leaders for “fools.”

In his Twitter comments, Trump said Washington had received “nothing but lies and deceits” in return for giving Pakistan more than $33 billion in the last 15 years.

Pakistani officials say they have received $14 billion and that Washington still owes the country $9 billion.

Both the U.S. action and Trump’s remarks have upset many in Pakistan.

A leading opposition politician, Imran Khan, on Friday demanded that the government categorically refuse to accept any future U.S. assistance in the wake of Trump’s remarks.

“Despite Pakistan clearing up North Waziristan, still half of Afghanistan is in Taliban hands. So, who is responsible for this?” Khan asked. “To make Pakistan the scapegoat of a failed strategy in Afghanistan is not just a travesty of justice, it is deeply insulting and humiliating.”

​Wavering ties?

Despite the tough talk, some U.S. officials are hopeful Washington and Islamabad can resolve their differences.

“We are still working with Pakistan and we will restore the aid if we see decisive movements against the terrorists, who are as much of a threat against Pakistan as they are against us,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters Friday.

Senior U.S. officials also said some of the suspended funding could be made available on a case-by-case basis in order to protect U.S. national security interests.

A senior U.S. official warned, however, that the government in Islamabad had pushed Trump’s patience past its limits.

“He’s monitoring Pakistan and how Pakistan has responded to our requests,” the official said. “It was a matter of frustration. The kinds of information that were coming to him were not satisfying.”

Pakistan’s reluctance to undertake counterterrorism operations, specifically in the Waziristan region, has been a major irritant in relations with the U.S., which sees the area as a training ground for Taliban and Haqqani militants.

U.S. officials say such safe havens remain intact, allowing the Taliban and Haqqani to conduct attacks in Afghanistan, such as a May 31, 2017, bombing that ripped through Kabul’s diplomatic quarter, killing more than 150 people.

Still, the Trump administration’s hard line with Pakistan is not without risk.

“For all the talk of how the U.S. may finally be taking its pressure to a new level to get the results it wants, pushing harder could backfire in a big way,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center, a Washington foreign policy think tank.

“If Pakistan feels sufficiently provoked by tough U.S. measures, it could retaliate in ways that damage U.S. interests in South Asia,” Kugelman said. “The most likely scenario is that Pakistan could shut down NATO supply routes on its soil, which would make America’s difficult war effort in Afghanistan all the more challenging.”

Risk acknowledged

The Pentagon sought Friday to downplay such concerns, but Trump administration officials admit that is a risk, and say there have been some preliminary talks with other allies in the region about providing lethal aid to coalition forces.

“I’m not saying it would be impossible, but it would not be easy,” the senior administration official said.

The U.S. has been forced to find alternate supply routes before.

In 2011, Pakistan shut down U.S. supply routes through its territory and airspace for months after U.S. airstrikes that mistakenly hit and killed 24 Pakistani border forces.

“We haven’t exactly entered uncharted territory in U.S.-Pakistan relations,” Kugelman said, noting both countries have found ways to forge ahead in the past. “There’s a good chance that if the screws start to tighten on Pakistan, then Pakistan may be compelled to take some modest measures to appease the U.S. in the short term.”

For now, though, it’s the frustration that has come to the fore.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif, in an interview with Geo News television, said the U.S. was “now neither a friend nor ally but a friend who always betrays.” He said Islamabad would have to review its ties to Washington and to strengthen relations with key regional players, including China, Iran and Russia.

VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report.
…

your ad here

Senator Ben Cardin, the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee spoke to VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren about Iran and North Korea during an interview Friday, Jan. 5, 2018.
…

your ad here

Washington state has sued budget hotel chain Motel 6, accusing it of illegally providing guest lists to U.S. immigration authorities. 

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said that motel employees had disclosed the names of at least 9,150 guests to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in violation of the state’s consumer protection and anti-discrimination laws. 

He said the motel also divulged birthdates, driver’s license numbers, license plate numbers and room numbers, all without a warrant or the guests’ knowledge or consent.

Ferguson said at least six Motel 6 locations in Washington state had engaged in the activity from June 2015 to May 2017. 

He said Motel 6 knew ICE used the lists to target guests based on their national origin and to check whether any were wanted in connection with immigration issues. He said the disclosures led to the detentions of at least six people in Washington and noted the practices in the state mirrored those in Arizona, where media reports said in September that ICE had arrested 20 people at Motel 6 locations there after getting similar tips. 

Local issue, chain said

At that time, Motel 6 said in a statement posted on Twitter that the practice was “implemented at the local level without the knowledge of senior management. When we became aware of it, it was discontinued.”

“Motel 6 implied this was a local problem,” Ferguson said in his statement. “We have found that is not true.”

Motel 6’s management company, G6 Hospitality, said this week that in September it ordered its more than 1,400 hotels in the United States and Canada to stop voluntarily giving guest lists to ICE agents. 

“Motel 6 takes this matter very seriously, and we have and will continue to fully cooperate with the Office of the State Attorney General,” the company said in a statement.

Motel 6 has been criticized in the past, notably by the American Civil Liberties Union, for sharing guest information with law enforcement agencies. In 2015, after a string of crimes at a Motel 6 in Rhode Island, the chain announced a change in policy that would allow its motels to share guest information with law enforcement.
…

your ad here