Hate crimes against Muslims in the US are at their highest level since immediately after the 9/11 attacks, according to a new report.
Data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University reported a 5 percent increase in hate crimes across 20 states in 2015.
However, hate crimes against Muslims grew by 78 percent.
Across the 20 states surveyed, reported cases of violence against Muslims rose to 196 in 2015, 29 percent higher than the 154 reported across the entire country in 2014.
The 2015 numbers are the highest since 2001, when there were a record 481, mostly following the attacks on September 11.
Researchers also drew correlations between the rates of hate crimes and politicians spouting anti-Muslim views.
There were eight anti-Muslim hate crimes in the US in the week between the San Bernardino attacks on December 2 2015 and Donald Trump's first tweet about banning Muslims from the country on December 7.
In the four days following Mr Trump's tweet, there were 15 reported cases of anti-Muslim violence.
They also observed a rise in hate searches on Google after Mr Trump's proposed anti-Muslim ban last year.
Anti-Arab and anti-gender/transgender, both new hate crime data categories created by the FBI, also saw a 219 and 40 percent increase respectively.
Newshub.
