Crimes based on race, religion and disability remained steady in the US in the last two years, with a slight increase in 2003 over 2002, says a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report.

After 9/11, statistics on hate crime have taken on added importance as several minorities, particularly those hailing from the Middle East or even South Asia, have complained of rising violence and discrimination.

The Hate Crime Statistics 2003 report shows there were 7,489 bias-motivated incidents last year compared to 7,462 in 2002.

Bias crimes include crimes based on antagonism towards a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability. Such feelings prompted crimes against 9,100 victims during 2003.

The report, published by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Programme, includes data aggregated from hate crime reports submitted by local, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the nation.

There was some increase in racial bias crimes, which accounted for 51.4 percent in 2003, as compared to 48.8 percent in 2002. Religious bias motivated 19.1 percent of incidents compared to 17.9 percent in 2002.

Crimes of sexual-orientation bias remained virtually the same, provoking 16.7 percent in 2003 compared to 16.6 percent in 2002. But bias against an ethnicity or national origin rose at least one percent, causing 14.8 percent of the hate crimes in 2003 compared to 13.7 percent in 2002.

The FBI report notes "with regard to the attribute of race, among the 6,934 reported offenders, 62.3 percent were white, and 18.5 percent were black".

The highest number of hate crime incidents (32.0 percent) took place in or on residential properties. Highways, roads, alleys or streets were the settings for 17.6 percent of the reported incidents, and 11.8 percent took place at schools and colleges. The remaining incidents were distributed among various locations.

Among the offences of murder, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation - all crimes against persons - intimidation was the most often-reported hate crime, comprising 49.7 percent of the total. Simple assault accounted for 32.8 percent of the total, and aggravated assault comprised 16.7 percent.

Murder and forcible rape accounted for 0.3 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively of crimes against persons and the offence category other made up the remaining 0.5 percent.

--Indo-Asian News Service