WASHINGTON – A Muslim advocate has embarked on a mission of urging people to build bridges in the society through mutual understanding with aim of countering Islamophobia and divisiveness in America.

“For the past four years, I’ve been working on building bridges. Unfortunately there is an entire industry devoted to spreading fear,” said Aneelah Afzali, an attorney and graduate of Harvard Law School who worked at two law firms in Seattle, becoming a partner at one, Yakima Herald reported.

“It threatens all our civil rights because it’s driven by fear. Islamophobia also opens the door to other forms of bigotry.”

As a graduate of the University of Oregon, Afzali is also a proud Muslim woman who believes in hard work, honesty, compassion, higher education and other family values shared by many of her fellow American citizens.

She is also an executive director of the American Muslim Empowerment Network, which she founded in 2016.

That initiative of the Muslim Association of Puget Sound came in response to challenges, including the rising threat of Islamophobia.

“What’s happening is not by accident,” Afzali said of the anti-Muslim campaign that’s spreading hate speech, false information and conspiracy theories.

Her initiative, declared during an event at the Downtown Yakima Rotary Club on Thursday, comes as hate crimes reach an unprecedented level in the US.

In 2015, there was a 67 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims from 2014, but 2017 was the worst year in US history of hate crimes against Muslims.

“I myself have had people roll down their windows and yell obscenities at me,” she said.

“Many people point to (President) Donald Trump, but it’s important to remember the trend of Islamophobia preceded Donald Trump,” she said.

“It’s the media coverage and how commentators speak about certain events,” she said. “Almost daily there are articles or shows on TV promoting conspiracy theories.

“Islam is the most often mentioned religion in mainstream media and 80 percent of it is negative.”