Trump 'fear-mongering' fuels rise of U.S. hate groups to record

February 21, 2019  07H:02  GMT/ZULU

by Rochelle van Amber and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON  - The number of hate groups operating in the United States rose 7 percent to an all-time high last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center said on Wednesday, attributing the increase largely to anti-immigrant rhetoric from President Donald Trump.

FILE PHOTO: A sign reading "Hate Has No Home Here" hangs by the statue of Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee, ahead of the one year anniversary of 2017 Charlottesville "Unite the Right" protests, in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S., August 10, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

The SPLC, which has tracked hate groups since 1971, found there were 1,020 operating in the United States in 2018, breaking the 1,018 record set in 2011. It marked the fourth consecutive year of growth.

The group blamed Trump, whose administration has focused on reducing illegal and legal immigration into the United States.

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“The words and imagery coming out of the Trump administration and from Trump himself are heightening these fears,” Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, told reporters on a conference call. “These images of foreign scary invaders threatening diseases, massive refugee caravans coming from the south. This is fear-mongering.”

The White House has repeatedly rejected charges of bias leveled at Trump, often citing the effects that a strong economy have had on minority communities. It did not respond to a request for comment on the report on Wednesday.

The SPLC defines hate groups as organizations with beliefs or practices that demonize a class of people. The number of groups has risen 30 percent since 2015 when Trump declared his presidential candidacy.

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The last surge in new hate groups came in the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency, a reaction to the first black U.S. president, the group said. The number rose 9 percent during the first three years of Obama’s administration to reach the prior record then dropped until 2015.

The group also cited online incitement for the rise. Despite efforts to regulate content on mainstream websites including Facebook, the internet still provides the most fertile ground for hate groups to recruit new members, SPLC said.

The non-profit said the growth of hate groups appeared to spur some who share their ideologies to take violent action. It cited Robert Bowers, who is accused of killing 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in October while shouting “All Jews must die.”

As part of SPLC’s count of hate groups, black nationalist groups rose 13 percent to 264 in 2018, an increase SPLC attributed to a backlash against Trump’s policies.

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Some of the SPLC’s targets have criticized the Montgomery, Alabama-based organization’s findings, saying it mislabeled legitimate organizations.

Earlier this month the founder of the Proud Boys, a self-described men-only club of “Western chauvinists,” sued the center for defamation. He contended the Proud Boys oppose racism, while the SPLC said it stood by its research.

Tennessee: White nationalists stage anti-refugee protests

OCTOBER 28, 2017 20H:55  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Alyssa Mann and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, SHELBYVILLE, Tenn.

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. - About 300 white nationalists and neo-Nazis held back-to-back rallies in two small Tennessee cities on Saturday to protest refugee resettlement in the state, which sued the federal government over the issue earlier this year.

Protesters arrive at a White Lives Matter rally in Shelbyville, Tennessee, U.S., October 28, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

The “White Lives Matter” rallies in Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, organized by some of the same groups involved in a Virginia march that turned violent in August, drew an equal number of counter-demonstrators and a heavy police presence.

The protesters started in Shelbyville, then traveled about 35 miles north to Murfreesboro for a second rally. Both towns are near Nashville, center of a metropolitan area has become home to refugees from Somalia, Iraq and elsewhere.

“We don’t want the federal government to keep dumping all these refugees into middle Tennessee,” said Brad Griffin, a member of a group known as the League of the South who has written about his desire to create a white “ethnostate.”

Saturday’s rallies were organized by the Nationalist Front coalition, which embraces groups considered neo-Nazi or neo-Confederate by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

To help keep the peace, Shelbyville police used temporary fencing to separate the white nationalists from counter-demonstrators. Anyone seeking to enter the area was searched. Guns, backpacks, sticks and other items that might double as weapons were banned.

The white nationalist demonstrators gathered behind a half dozen white shields emblazoned with red crosses. Counter-protesters carried signs with slogans including “Don’t Hate” and “Veterans for Peace.” Two lines of police, some in riot gear, stood between the two sides, who shouted at each other.

One man was arrested for disorderly conduct, but there were no injuries, local media said. The reports could not be immediately confirmed.

Counter protesters line the street across from a White Lives Matter rally in Shelbyville, Tennessee, U.S., October 28, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

Later in Murfreesboro, where protesters were prohibited from carrying shields, or wearing masks or helmets, the rally remained peaceful, the city said on Twitter.

Local officials and faith leaders had denounced the gatherings, fearing they could inflame racial, ethnic and religious animosities in the state.

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Over the last 15 years, about 18,000 refugees have been resettled in Tennessee, less than 1 percent of the state’s population, according to the Tennessean newspaper.

The state filed a lawsuit the federal government in March saying it had been unduly forced to pay for refugee resettlements. It was the first state to bring such a case on the basis of the 10th Amendment, which limits U.S. government powers to those provided by the Constitution. Other states have filed similar suits on different legal grounds.

“When they say refugees, what they really mean is Muslims,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, referring to Saturday’s protesters.

He noted that a Murfreesboro mosque has been a source of controversy and vandalism for years.

“Tennessee is one of the states that has seen a rise in anti-Muslim bigotry in recent years, particularly since the election,” Hooper said.

President Donald Trump has sought to ban travel from six Muslim-majority countries since he took office and called during his 2016 election campaign for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Florida police brace for protests against speech by white nationalist

OCTOBER 19, 2017  15H:55 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rochelle van Amber and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, GAINESVILLE, Fla.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Hundreds of police will be deployed at the University of Florida on Thursday as thousands are poised to protest a speech by an avowed white nationalist, an event that prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency in preparation for possible violence.

A flier is seen on a pole the day before a speech by Richard Spencer, an avowed white nationalist and spokesperson for the so-called alt-right movement, on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Richard Spencer’s speech at the university in Gainesville comes about two months after rallies by neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to violent clashes with counter-protesters and killed at least one person. The flare-up challenged U.S. President Donald Trump and stoked a smoldering national debate on race.

Spencer, who heads the National Policy Institute, is scheduled to speak at 2:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) at a performing arts center. The university said no one at the university invited him to speak and it was obligated under law to allow the event.

The National Policy Institute is vetting which reporters it will allow inside to cover the speech, university officials said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups in the United States, said Spencer is “a radical white separatist whose goal is the establishment of a white ethno-state in North America.”

The Orlando Sentinel newspaper quoted Spencer as saying the emergency declaration issued this week was “flattering” but “most likely overkill.”

Florida Highway Patrol officers stand guard the day before a speech by Richard Spencer, an avowed white nationalist and spokesperson for the so-called alt-right movement, on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

About 3,000 people have signed up on a Facebook page to say they will be attending a protest rally called “No Nazis at UF,” which will be held outside the venue where Spencer is speaking.

The university said it will spend more than $500,000 on security. It did not provide details on tactics but among the groups dispatched will be the University of Florida Police Department, Gainesville Police Department, Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Florida Highway Patrol.

A student walks past a banner and slogan the day before a speech by Richard Spencer, an avowed white nationalist and spokesperson for the so-called alt-right movement, on the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Classes at the university will be conducted as planned except for those held in close proximity to the speech venue, the school said.

University President Kent Fuchs urged students not to attend the event and denounced Spencer’s white nationalism.

“By shunning him and his followers we will block his attempt for further visibility,” Fuchs said in a statement earlier this month.

The death in Charlottesville, home to the flagship campus of the University of Virginia, occurred as counter-protesters were dispersing. A 20-year-old man who is said by law enforcement to have harbored Nazi sympathies smashed his car into the crowd, killing a 32-year-old woman.

Duke University removes Robert Lee statue after vandalism

AUGUST 20, 2017 /  08H:46  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by rochelle van amber and Biodun Iginla, bbc news and rueters, Durham, North Carolina

Duke University removed a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from the entrance of a chapel on the Durham, North Carolina, campus, officials said on Saturday, days after it was vandalized.

The decision to take down the statue followed discussions among students, faculty, staff and alumni about maintaining safety on campus, university President Vincent E. Price said in a statement.

"I took this course of action to protect Duke Chapel, to ensure the vital safety of students and community members who worship there, and above all to express the deep and abiding values of our university," Price said.

The prestigious university will preserve the statue of Lee, who led Confederate forces in the American Civil War of 1861-1865, and use it as an educational tool so that students can study "Duke's complex past," Price added.

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The Confederacy, comprised of 11 Southern states, broke from the Union largely to preserve the institution of slavery.

Symbols of the Confederacy have come into focus since last weekend, when white nationalists, angered at the planned removal of a statue of Lee from a park in Charlottesville, Virginia, engaged in violent protests where a counter-protester was killed.

People walk past the empty plinth where a statue of Confederate commander General Robert E. Lee once stood flanked by statues of Thomas Jefferson and the poet Sidney Lanier at the entrance to Duke University's Duke Chapel after officials removed the controversial statue early Saturday morning in Durham, North Carolina, U.S., August 19, 2017.Jason Miczek

The Robert E. Lee statue, one of 10 outside Duke Chapel, was vandalized and defaced late on Wednesday night. Campus security discovered the damage early Thursday, according to university officials. The incident was under investigation.

"Wednesday night's act of vandalism made clear that the turmoil and turbulence of recent months do not stop at Duke's gates," Price said.

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"We have a responsibility to come together as a community to determine how we can respond to this unrest in a way that demonstrates our firm commitment to justice, not discrimination," he said.

Duke will form a committee to advise the school on how to properly memorialize historical figures on campus, and to recommend teaching programs, exhibitions and forums to explore its past.

There are more than 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy, including 700 monuments and statues, in public spaces across the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center said.

The large majority of these were erected long after the Civil War ended in 1865. Many went up early in the 20th century during a backlash among segregationists against the civil rights movement.

More than a half-dozen have been taken down since last week.