The Fighting 44s

The controversial bill that had religous zealots up in arms over the possibility of being persecuted for their conservative views, has been passed and is applauded by the Asian American Justice Center. See, people? It wasn’t just about the rights of the LBTG community (although we’ve made considerable progress for them as a result); it was also about us — we as Asian Americans, we as a visible minority — and protecting our rights against any future possibility of hate crime transgression. If you’ve missed this, check out our past article on the controversial bill here.

http://www.asianjournal.com/
May 16th, 2007

Asian American Justice Center Applauds House Passage of Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Hate Crimes Prevention Act

WASHINGTON, DC - The Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), a national civil rights organization, applauds the U.S. House of Representatives for passing the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, with a bipartisan vote of 237-180. The Act enables the Department of Justice to assist federal, state and local law enforcement efforts in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes based on race, ethnic background and religion, and expands the definition of hate crimes to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

“Comprehensive and meaningful federal hate crime legislation is something that we have supported for years,” said Aimee Baldillo, director of programs at AAJC. “The passage of the bill in the House is an important step towards creating communities free of the terror hate crimes create. We hope Congress continues to work together across party lines in supporting such positive legislation.”

The Asian American Justice Center (www.advancingequality.org) is a national organization dedicated to defending and advancing the civil and human rights of Asian Americans. It works closely with three affiliates - the Asian American Institute in Chicago (www.aaichicago.org), the Asian Law Caucus (www.asianlawcaucus.org) in San Francisco, and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (www.apalc.org) in Los Angeles - and nearly 100 community partners in 49 cities, 23 states and Washington, D.C.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Advocacy & Activism, News, Social Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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