Muslim man sues Oklahoma gun range for refusing him service

OKLAHOMA CITY — A U.S. Army reservist from Tulsa who was asked to leave a gun range in eastern Oklahoma after identifying himself as a Muslim is suing the owners in federal court, pushing back against what he says is a rise in anti-Islamic sentiment across the country.

Attorneys for Raja'ee Fatihah filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Muskogee against the owners of Save Yourself Survival and Tactical Gun Range in the small town of Oktaha, in Eastern Oklahoma.

A sign on the business declared the range a "Muslim-free" establishment. Fatihah's lawyer Brady Henderson says similar signs have been placed at businesses in Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky and New York.

The Oklahoma store's owner Chad Neal referred calls to an attorney for the American Freedom Law Center who didn't immediately return a telephone message.

According to a Gayly report last year, a Pew Research Center survey found an increasing share of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its followers.

In the wake of the Paris attacks and San Bernadino shooting last year, there has been a spike in anti-Muslim incidents across the United States. A severed pig's head was left outside a mosque in Philadelphia. An Islamic center in Florida was defaced. A Sikh temple in California was vandalized by someone who mistook it for a mosque and left graffiti that included a profane reference to the Islamic State group.

The shooting in California last December prompted Donald Trump to propose a complete ban on Muslim immigrants into the US. Advocates say other GOP presidential candidates also have fueled anti-Islamic sentiment, including Ben Carson who suggested a Muslim should not be president and Rick Santorum who questioned whether the U.S. Constitution protected Islam.

Sean Murphy of The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The Gayly- 2/17/2016 @ 11:31 AM CST