hate crime
Biden: Hate fuels extremist violence
US President Joe Biden has spoken out against hate crimes and right-wing extremism. photo
© Susan Walsh/AP/dpa
Hate crimes, often fatal, occur time and again in the United States. President Joe Biden sees right-wing extremism above all as a danger – and wants stricter gun laws.
US President Joe Biden has called for a ban on assault rifles at a hate crime summit. Biden said on Thursday (local time) in the White House in the US capital Washington.
At the same time, he condemned the corrosive effects of hate-fueled violence on democracy and public security. Hate will always be revived if it only gets enough oxygen, Biden said. “In recent years, hate has been given too much oxygen in our politics, in our media and on the internet.”
Biden: “Too much hatred fueled extremist violence”
Representatives from politics, business, civil society, the church and the police, who are particularly committed to combating violence, hate crime and radicalization in the USA, were invited to the summit. “Too much hatred has fueled extremist violence and allowed it to spread,” Biden said. The US intelligence services have identified right-wing extremism as the greatest terrorist threat to the country. Biden repeatedly calls for stricter gun laws – but the Republicans repeatedly block such projects. Assault rifles were banned in the United States from 1994 to 2004. Then the ban expired.
Repeatedly deadly hate crimes in the United States
Fatal hate crimes continue to occur in the United States. In May, a racially motivated gunman killed 10 people with an assault rifle in and outside a supermarket in the US city of Buffalo. The majority of the victims were black. During a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville around five years ago, a woman was killed when a right-wing extremist drove his car into a group of counter-demonstrators. “We must shine the light of truth, justice and justice on this issue and reject those who want us to live in fear of those around us,” the victim’s mother said during the summit.