Speaking at an interfaith event at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center, U.S Attorney General Loretta Lynch addressed a recent FBI report which stated a 67% increase in hate crimes against Muslim Americans in 2015 – the highest spike since 9/11. “Hate crimes target more than just the individual at that time; they target the fabric of our communities,” Ms. Lynch said. “They are also a stain on our nation’s very soul.”
Ms. Lynch gave a thirty-minute speech in front of a gathering of Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and Sikh leaders. The ADAMS Center serves 25,000 people in the D.C. Metro area and is considered one of the largest mosques in the country. In her speech, Ms. Lynch discussed the “pernicious thread that connects the act of violence against a woman wearing a hijab to the assault on a transgender man to the tragic deaths of nine innocent African-Americans during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina. There is a thread that links all of those and when one of us is threatened all of us are threatened.”
“She pretty much covered everything,” commented Saleem Arif who lead the local Boy Scouts in the Pledge of Allegiance. “I trust our justice system.”
