Hillary Clinton Calls South Carolina Massacre “Racist Terrorism”

Hillary Clinton Calls South Carolina Massacre “Racist Terrorism”
Fecha de publicación: 
24 June 2015
0
Imagen principal: 

In a speech on racism in the United States delivered in Florissant, Missouri, Clinton used a word – “terrorism” – that the FBI has officially avoided to describe the massacre by a young white supremacist last week.

The attack was “an act of racist terrorism perpetrated in a house of God,” said Clinton in Florissant, a community near Ferguson, Missouri, where the gunning down of a young black man by a white police officer almost a year ago sparked protests and revived the debate on racism in the country.

The U.S. Justice Department last Friday said that it was investigating the Charleston shooting “from all angles,” including as a hate crime and an act of domestic terrorism, according to spokesperson Emily Pierce.

However, FBI director James Comey also said on Friday that he did not believe that the Charleston incident fit the definition of a terrorist act.

He said at a Baltimore press conference that terrorism is an act of violence or a threat that seeks to try to influence a public entity or the public in general, and thus it is a political act, and he added that – based on what he knew of it at that time – the Charleston massacre did not appear to be a political act.

In her speech on Tuesday, Clinton also supported the possibility of removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol grounds, as state lawmakers – as well as legislators in other Southern states – are preparing to debate.

Clinton said she backed South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s call to remove the flag, adding that it was a “symbol of our nation’s racist past that has no place in our nation’s present or future. It shouldn’t fly there, it shouldn’t fly anywhere.”

The former secretary of state also hailed the decision by Walmart, Amazon, eBay and Sears to no longer stock items bearing the controversial banner, and she urged all businesses to follow their example.

Add new comment

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.