‘American Sniper’ Triggers Flood Of Anti-Muslim Venom, Civil Rights Group Warns

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said this week that threats against Muslims and Arabs have soared following the release of “American Sniper,” a hugely popular and hugely controversial film.

Threats reported to the civil rights group have tripled since the film’s wide opening over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, the committee told The Guardian. “The last time we saw such a sharp increase was in 2010, around the Ground Zero mosque,” said the group’s national legal and policy director, Abed Ayoub, referring to an Islamic center that was going to be located a few blocks from the World Trade Center site.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee has even sent letters to “American Sniper” star Bradley Cooper and director Clint Eastwood, imploring them “to help reduce the hateful rhetoric,” according to USA Today. The group wrote that it has seen “hundreds of violent messages targeting Arabs and Muslims from moviegoers of the film.”

The civil rights group said in its letter that it’s working with the FBI and local law enforcement officials to address the threats.

“It is imperative for us, as Americans, to act now to prevent these verbal threats from turning into violent and physical hate crimes,” the group wrote.

The Huffington Post