Anti-Muslim vandalism on Berkeley business sparks calls to ‘root out hate'

Berkeley residents and local groups are sounding the alarm after a Muslim-owned business was tagged with Islamaphobic graffiti over the weekend.

Negeene Mosaed, who owns the Berkeley Community Physical Therapy clinic on Telegraph Avenue near Martin Luther King Jr. Way, explained that an employee noticed the graffiti Saturday evening while walking in the neighborhood.

Mosaed said the message was sprawled across the front window at the business, saying "F*** Islam" in gold paint.

"It had been there all day, and some people had scratched off the 'F-U,' but it was very evident and obvious what the word was," Mosaed explained.

Mosaed is Muslim and Iranian. She notes she found out about the vandalism on the first full day of Ramadan.

"First of all, I felt degraded," Mosaed said.

She called the police and filed a report.

NBC Bay Area reached out to Berkeley police about the incident on Sunday but did not hear back.

Mosaed prides herself on running a community-oriented clinic that serves "people from all ranges of age, socioeconomic, and religious backgrounds." She said while her ownership is more recent, the clinic itself has existed in downtown Berkeley for 40 years.

Mosaed said the clinic had been vandalized three other times in the past year. In those previous instances, a poster outside the clinic calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was defaced, covering up the word "ceasefire."

Mosaed said when she brought these previous incidents up to the police, "there wasn’t any action given to it, and it was just considered ‘vandalism.'"

CAIR, the country's largest Muslim civil rights organization, was made aware of this recent vandalism and has reached out to Mosaed to offer support.

"This is unfortunate but also a recurring incident in the San Francisco Bay Area," said Zahra Billoo, the executive director of CAIR San Francisco Bay Area.

Since October 2023, CAIR has seen upward trends in reported anti-Muslim incidents across the country. CAIR, which tracks complaints about these incidents, reports that from January to June 2024, it documented 4,951 incoming complaints -- a 69% increase over the same period in 2023.

Billoo described the vandalism at the Berkeley clinic as "horrific."

"It's clear this was a bias-motivated incident, and we want to make sure it’s being investigated in that way," Billoo said.

Jaffa Coffee Roasters, another Berkeley business, also experienced multiple incidents of vandalism over the past year.

In a statement, Jaffa Coffee Roasters told NBC Bay Area, "The city of Berkeley is home to a diverse range of ethnic and religious communities, and it is deeply disappointing to witness the ongoing vandalism targeting Muslim-American owned establishments, especially on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan.

"We call on the mayor and City Council of Berkeley to take action in addressing the continued vandalism that harms tax-paying businesses in our community," the statement continued.

Mosaed and the Berkeley Network for Palestine will host a vigil Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center to stand against hate. They are inviting local elected leaders and community members to join.

"We can’t take this lightly," Mosaed said. "It started with just a black mark, then it goes to slurs and terrible language, and then, where does it end?"