A 60-page report released by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) details more than 280 incidents and experiences of anti-Muslim stereotyping, bias, harassment and violence.

The council, which was established in 1994, says that although there was a 60 per cent increase in the number of discrimination cases, there was an an overall decrease in acts of violence against American Muslims. The drop is attributed to the absence of such events as the Oklahoma city bombing in 1995 or the downing of TWA flight 800 in 1996 both of which triggered anti-Muslim violence in the US.

``The trends documented in the report indicate that discrimination is now part of daily life for American Muslims,'' says Mohamer Nimer, director of the CAIR's research centre and author of the report.Anti-Muslim incidents, he says, includes vandalism of an Islamic display on the White House ellipse, termination of Muslim women employees who wished to wear a religiously-mandated head scarf and problems encountered by Muslims who must offer their prayers during work or school hours.

Currently, the total US population of 270 million includes six million Muslims.

In December last year, a `swastika' was spray-painted on a star and crescent display at the White House ellipse in Washington DC. The incident took place one day after the display was set up for the first time ever to mark the end of the month of Ramzan.

In Virigina early this year, a supervisor told a Muslim employee: ``If you weren't fasting here, you'd be in Algeria blowing up people.''

The report, titled `Patterns of discrimination,' points out that many of the anti-Muslim incidents were due to a general bias against religious sentiment or outdated corporate policies that do not reflect increased religious diversity in the workplace.