diff --git a/AbuseFilter.hooks.php b/AbuseFilter.hooks.php
index 96b421cd4..255a1f6a8 100644
--- a/AbuseFilter.hooks.php
+++ b/AbuseFilter.hooks.php
@@ -7,6 +7,57 @@ class AbuseFilterHooks {
 	// So far, all of the error message out-params for these hooks accept HTML.
 	// Hooray!
 
+	/**
+	 * Entry point for the APIEditBeforeSave hook.
+	 * This is needed to give a useful error for API edits (Bug 32216)
+	 *
+	 * @see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Hooks/APIEditBeforeSave
+	 *
+	 * @param EditPage $editPage
+	 * @param string $text New text of the article (has yet to be saved)
+	 * @param array &$resultArr Data in this array will be added to the API result
+	 *
+	 * @return bool
+	 */
+	public static function onAPIEditBeforeSave( $editPage, $text, &$result ) {
+		global $wgUser;
+
+		$context = $editPage->mArticle->getContext();
+
+		$status = Status::newGood();
+		$minoredit = $editPage->minoredit;
+		$summary = $editPage->summary;
+
+		// poor man's PST, see bug 20310
+		$text = str_replace( "\r\n", "\n", $text );
+
+		$continue = self::filterEdit( $context, null, $text, $status, $summary, $wgUser, $minoredit );
+
+		if ( !$status->isOK() ) {
+			$msg = $status->getErrorsArray();
+
+			// Use the error message key name as error code, the first parameter is the filter description.
+			if ( $msg[0] instanceof Message ) {
+				// For forward compatibility: In case we switch over towards using Message objects someday.
+				// (see the todo for AbuseFilter::buildStatus)
+				$code = $msg[0]->getKey();
+				$filterDescription = $msg[0]->getParams();
+				$filterDescription = $filterDescription[0];
+			} else {
+				$code = $msg[0][0];
+				$filterDescription = $msg[0][1];
+			}
+
+			$result = array(
+				'code' => $code,
+				'info' => 'Hit AbuseFilter: ' . $filterDescription,
+				'warning' => $status->getHTML()
+			);
+		}
+
+		return $status->isOK();
+	}
+
 	/**
 	 * Entry points for MediaWiki hook 'EditFilterMerged' (MW 1.20 and earlier)
 	 *
@@ -58,7 +109,8 @@ class AbuseFilterHooks {
 	}
 
 	/**
-	 * Common implementation for EditFilterMerged and EditFilterMergedContent hooks.
+	 * Common implementation for the APIEditBeforeSave, EditFilterMerged
+	 * and EditFilterMergedContent hooks.
 	 *
 	 * @param IContextSource $context the context of the edit
 	 * @param Content|null $content the new Content generated by the edit
@@ -73,7 +125,15 @@ class AbuseFilterHooks {
 	public static function filterEdit( IContextSource $context, $content, $text,
 				Status $status, $summary, User $user, $minoredit ) {
 		// Load vars
-		$vars = new AbuseFilterVariableHolder;
+		$vars = new AbuseFilterVariableHolder();
+
+		$title = $context->getTitle();
+
+		// Some edits are running through multiple hooks, but we only want to filter them once
+		if ( isset( $title->editAlreadyFiltered ) ) {
+			return true;
+		}
+		$title->editAlreadyFiltered = true;
 
 		self::$successful_action_vars = false;
 		self::$last_edit_page = false;
@@ -82,7 +142,6 @@ class AbuseFilterHooks {
 		$oldtext = '';
 		$oldcontent = null;
 
-		$title = $context->getTitle();
 		if ( ( $title instanceof Title ) && $title->canExist() && $title->exists() ) {
 			// Make sure we load the latest text saved in database (bug 31656)
 			$page = $context->getWikiPage();
diff --git a/AbuseFilter.php b/AbuseFilter.php
index 67ceddc33..ba38823df 100644
--- a/AbuseFilter.php
+++ b/AbuseFilter.php
@@ -87,6 +87,7 @@ $wgHooks['ContributionsToolLinks'][] = 'AbuseFilterHooks::onContributionsToolLin
 $wgHooks['UploadVerifyFile'][] = 'AbuseFilterHooks::onUploadVerifyFile';
 $wgHooks['MakeGlobalVariablesScript'][] = 'AbuseFilterHooks::onMakeGlobalVariablesScript';
 $wgHooks['ArticleSaveComplete'][] = 'AbuseFilterHooks::onArticleSaveComplete';
+$wgHooks['APIEditBeforeSave'][] = 'AbuseFilterHooks::onAPIEditBeforeSave';
 
 $wgAvailableRights[] = 'abusefilter-modify';
 $wgAvailableRights[] = 'abusefilter-log-detail';