Rev. Al Sharpton announced plans Tuesday for a march on the U.S. Justice Department in Washington on Nov. 16.
Sharpton, speaking at Atlanta's Richard B. Russell federal building, is protesting what he believes is the Justice Department's failure to prosecute a series of recent hate crimes across the country.
"We feel that the federal government has failed to intervene in the cases of hate crimes — swastikas and nooses," Sharpton said. "Since the federal government won't come to the people, we're going to bring the people to the federal government."
Sharpton was joined at Tuesday's news conference by Martin Luther King III. Both noted what appeared to be a string of copycat crimes involving nooses following the well-publicized Jena 6 episode in Mississippi.
Warren Ballantine, a radio host appearing alongside Sharpton and King on Tuesday, also called for a "blackout" on Nov. 2, asking people to not spend money on that day in hopes of sending a message to the federal government.
Said Sharpton: "We'll continue to mobilize until there's justice, and that has to come from the federal government."
also:
The Justice Department is prosecuting the fewest hate crimes in 10 years as civil rights activists cite noose hangings and other racial incidents to question the government's commitment to such cases.
Some Washington lawmakers and activists are demanding that the Justice Department focus more attention on hate crimes in light of recent cases such as the kidnapping, torture and beating of a black woman in West Virginia by six white people and the violence that followed the hanging of nooses in a schoolyard tree in Jena, La.
Despite high-profile cases, the decline mirrors an overall decrease in hate crime reports, says department spokesman Erik Ablin. At the same time, the department is prosecuting more civil rights cases.
Hate crimes are crimes motivated by prejudice based on race, religion or ethnicity.
They are one of three main categories of federal civil rights violations. The others are abuse by police and human trafficking.
Last year, the department charged 22 people with hate crimes. That was down 71% from 76 in 1997.
Meanwhile, the department has charged more people with police misconduct and human trafficking. For example, since 2001, the department has prosecuted 360 people on charges of human trafficking, compared with 89 in the six years before that.
FBI figures show that hate crime reports fell 11% from 1997 to 2005, the most recent year available.
Ablin says the Justice Department is committed to investigating and prosecuting civil rights cases. It charged a record 201 people with civil rights violations last year.
The number of reports doesn't necessarily reflect the number of hate crimes, says Steve Wessler, executive director for the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence. Victims are often scared to report the crimes, and police agencies report inconsistently, he says.
"Racial violence is not decreasing," Wessler says. "Either the resources are not going in to prosecute these cases or there isn't a willingness to bring these cases."
Ten-year Justice Department figures show a 60% drop in annual referrals of hate crime investigations to prosecutors.
Activists Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III plan a Nov. 16 rally in front of the Justice Department in Washington to protest what they say is the department's inaction.
Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas says the department has shown little commitment to fighting hate crimes.
"It's very clear that the drop in prosecutions shows a total disinterest in the importance of protecting people against hate crimes," she says.
The Justice Department charges relatively few hate crime cases partly because the federal hate crime statute is narrow, says Michael Lieberman, Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League.
Federal prosecutors can charge a hate crime if a violent act is motivated by the victim's race or ethnicity and the crime was intended to stop the victim from engaging in a federally protected activity such as voting, attending school or gaining access to housing or work.
In the West Virginia case, a hate crime was not charged because the victim was not involved in a federally protected activity, says West Virginia U.S. Attorney Charles Miller.
"There's a lot of misunderstanding about the federal hate crime statute," Miller says. "They hear something like this happens and most people conclude it's a violation of the federal civil rights statute. It certainly sounds like it should be."
http://www.nationalactionnetwork.net/index.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
