Muslim-Americans report receiving anonymous robocalls asking for religious affiliation: ‘Scared the s--t out of me’

Several Muslim-Americans received mysterious robocalls asking them whether they identify as a follower of Islam, some of whom are citing the spectre of a proposed Muslim registry as cause for alarm over the confounding calls.

The Council on Islamic-American Relations, the country’s largest civil rights and advocacy group for Muslim-Americans, started flagging social media posts from users who reported receiving the calls this week.

The robocall appear to have gone out in the past two days asking Muslim-Americans their religious affiliation and assuring them the call would “be kept strictly anonymous and confidential,” according to a Facebook post by Shamsiya Shervani.

“Do you identify yourself as a MUSLIM, yes press one no press two,” the robocall asked, according to Shervani’s post.

“I am guessing this is the start of the tracking database,” he added, referring to a Muslim registry once mentioned by Trump on the campaign trail. Some close to Trump’s transition team continue to propose the idea of a registry, most notably when surrogate Carl Higbie controversially cited Japanese internment camps as its precedent in an interview with Fox News’s Megyn Kelly last week.

A 27-year-old man from outside of Philadelphia who wished to remain anonymous told the Daily News that he and his wife received the calls at the same time around 6 p.m. Monday.

“I’m not sure how we were singled out, but the fact that we were is disturbing,” he said, adding that he witnessed roughly 5 or 6 of his Muslim-American friends from the Philadelphia area who also received the calls.

At least two other Muslim-Americans wrote on social media about receiving the robocalls in the past day. Marisa Stroud wrote on Facebook that she received an email on Monday night from a friend who received the call, reporting that no matter whether the call recipient pressed ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in response to whether they identified as Muslim, the call hung up.

“‘Scared the s--t out of me’,” Stroud wrote, quoting her friend’s email.

When the Daily News dialed the Washington D.C.-area phone number listed by Shervani’s post, the call rings once and a man’s voice says “to be removed from future calls, please leave your telephone number,” before going to voicemail.

The unidentified organization administering the calls did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the News left a message.

CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim-American advocacy group, put out an alert about the robocalls, urging anyone to notify them if they receive any.

Ibrahim Hooper, the organization’s national communications director, said he initially thought the robocalls could be CAIR’s own polling outreach to Muslim-Americans — but is suspicious that the calls would not identify them as the caller.

“We just don’t know at this point. Usually when we do a robocall, we identify ourselves, we say who’s calling and what we’re asking for. It’s strange that none of that information seemed to be offered,” Hooper told the News.

The calls come amid reports of numerous acts of vandalization and violence against Muslim-Americans in the aftermath of the presidential election.

As of Nov. 16,the Southern Poverty Law Center reported more than 700 hate crimes carried out since Election Day. Most of the incidents were designated as anti-immigrant, while 51 of them were anti-Muslim, according to tracking by SPLC.

“Everybody’s really on edge and really anxious and something that could be innocuous is viewed as ominous,” Hooper said. “Hopefully it’s just some misunderstanding.”

See more on this Topic