Survey: 8 in 10 Americans Believe Muslims Face More Intolerance Than Any Other Group

TEHRAN (defapress)- Eight in ten Americans believe Muslims face more discrimination than any other group in the United States, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.

News ID: 76896

Date: 18 April 2019 - 20:00

82 percent of respondents said Muslims face discrimination, while 80 percent of those surveyed said blacks faced some discrimination, Daily Sabah reported.

Pew released the figures Monday after US President Donald Trump tweeted a video that attacked Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar from Minnesota.

The video was of a speech delivered by Omar in which she discussed how Muslim Americans came to be seen as second-class citizens after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. The American president's tweet mixed in footage from the attacks with parts of the speech.

Omar is one of the first Muslim lawmakers to be elected to Congress, alongside Michigan's Rashida Tlaib, and has faced a flurry of attacks since she began in office this year.

The Muslim congresswoman stated that she has faced more death threats since the US leader posted the tweet, sparking criticism that Trump is condoning harmful attacks against the country's own elected officials.

The survey was conducted prior to the US president's tweet.

92 percent of Democrats said there is discrimination against Muslims in America, with 75% saying there is a lot of discrimination, according to the poll. While less Republican respondents said the same, 69%, a large majority, agreed.

The percentage of people that think Jews face "a lot" of discrimination nearly doubled since 2016, rising from 13% to 24%, with 64% of respondents saying there is some discrimination against the group, according to Pew.

Race played a large factor in predicting how much discrimination a respondent thought was happening. 73 percent of black respondents said there is "a lot" of discrimination against blacks and 63% of Hispanics said the same about discrimination against Hispanics.

However, among whites, it was partisanship that was the biggest factor in deciding how they answered.

Among white Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents, around two-thirds said there is discrimination against blacks, while only 16% of white Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents said the same.

The survey was conducted between March 20 and 25 and surveyed 1,503 adults.

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