'Open season on Muslims under Trump'

Hate-mongering against Muslims seems to be on the rise in the US in the aftermath of Donald Trump's election as president. The situation has prompted civil rights activists to call for more police protection for the Muslim community. In the latest case of hateful acts, three mosques in the state of California received letters last week that threatened Muslims with genocide. The letters hailed Trump as a new sheriff who would cleanse America of Muslims and make it “shine again.”

In an interview with Press TV, Richard Silverstein, a journalist and political commentator, blamed the Trump campaign for stoking hatred and anger among its supporters against minority groups, Muslims in particular, predicting that over the next four years, minorities would be the target of worst hate crimes in US history.

“It is unfortunately open season on American minorities and all of the opponents and enemies that Donald Trump singled out during his campaign. That includes immigrants and Muslims. The linkage of this attack by the people who wrote these massages to these mosques in California to the election of Donald Trump is not a mistake, or an accident. The worst elements of hate, intolerance, and racism in our society have been empowered by Donald Trump’s election,” Silverstein said.

He further noted that by picking the most leading Islamophobe Republican figures, such as Rudy Giuliani, for sensitive vacancies, Trump is actually relaying this message to extremist groups that their prejudices will be fully supported.

Trump “has not denounced or opposed any of these attacks. Even when they’re done in his name, he refuses to denounce them. He told The New York Times editorial board that 'of course I don’t like these attacks, of course I denounce them,' but he has never made any public statement to that effect,” the analyst underscored.

Although Donald Trump tries to make divisions between himself and the haters, Silverstein said, the next four years would see a lot of racist and terror attacks targeting Muslims and immigrants.

“The alt-right [group], which is the far-right white nationalist side of the American politics, is going to feel that it is empowered to take the law into its own hands and the FBI and American intelligence agencies are going to have their hands full in the next four years. And I fear that blood would flow in the event that this happens.”

Trump has repeatedly vowed to ban Muslims from entering the US and to deport illegal immigrants, unleashing a wave of civil unrest that began during the campaign and continued after his election.

According to the FBI, hate crimes overall grew by 6.8 percent in 2015 to a total of 5,850 incidents, compared with the 5,479 incidents reported in 2014.