US sets up task force to check hate crime

Washington, May 3 

The Trump administration has made fighting violent crime one of its top priorities and set up a task force to look into the recent surge in hate crimes in the US, including those against the Hindu and Sikh communities.

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing on increase in religious hate crime, senior Justice Department official referred to the several instances of hate crimes against Hindu and Sikhs communities. “The Attorney General (Jeff Sessions) has made fighting violent crime one of his top priorities,” said Eric Treene, special counsel for religious discrimination civil rights division at the Department of Justice.

On June 29, the Hate Crimes Subcommittee will hold an additional one-day summit focusing solely on identifying, prosecuting, and preventing hate crimes.

Indian-American Vanita Gupta, a former civil rights official at the Justice Department under Obama administration, said from the tragic shooting of two Indians in Kansas to mosque arsons and synagogue vandalism, an alarming number of gut-wrenching incidents of hate crime have shaken the public. 

“There is no question that many South Asians, Sikhs, and people of other faiths are targeted because people believe they are Muslim,” she said.  Sikhs, for example, may be mistaken as Muslims, but they also have a long history in this country and in others of facing persecution and discrimination, Gupta said.

Dr Prabhjot Singh, a Sikh American who has experienced hate violence first hand, said while it was clear that Sikh-Americans were not alone in experiencing such crime, the community’s experience was important to understand how dangerous this inflammatory rhetoric promises to be if not curbed. 

According to Sikh Coalition surveys (from 2008-2010), approximately 10 per cent of Sikh respondents in New York City and San Francisco Bay Area reported they had experienced assaults or property damage because of their religion, he said. — PTI

US man beats Asian, screams ‘We’re white power’ 

New York: A 48-year-old man in the US has been charged with hate crime after he pummeled an Asian man in the face screaming “We are white power”, “Go back to your country! What are you doing here?”, the police said on Wednesday. Steven Zatorski, stormed up to the 30-year-old victim on Third Avenue in New York and started kicking him on Monday, the police said. Witnesses alerted a nearby New York Police Department transit cop, who arrested the alleged attacker. PTI