Washington.- President Joe Biden signed a law on hate crimes aimed at protecting Asian Americans, who have suffered a “shocking” increase in attacks during the Covid-19 pandemic
Biden rejected the “horrible poison” of racism, and regretted that so many members of that community have been “attacked, vilified, designated as scapegoats” in recent months.
“Too many Asian Americans fear for their safety,” he said, before signing the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act, a rule designed to speed up the evaluation of reported cases of racist violence, better communicate this problem and help states and local communities to better combat them.
In a rare event in a highly divided Congress, the House of Representatives approved the text by 364 votes to 62. A few weeks earlier it had been approved almost unanimously in the Senate.
Many elected officials have for months denounced the rise in racial violence, fueled in particular, they say, by speeches blaming China for the pandemic.
A massacre in Atlanta in March in which six women of Asian descent were killed sounded the alarm.
The release shortly after the video of the particularly violent attack on an Asian woman in her sixties in New York also sparked a wave of outrage.
The governor of the state, Andrew Cuomo, lamented that this type of violence has become “an epidemic” in the state and in the country.
People of Asian descent make up approximately 5.9% of the United States population.
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