From Atlanta, Biden calls for confronting violence against Asian Americans

reuters

On Friday, US President Joe Biden, from Atlanta, where he went to console Asian Americans after a series of shootings, urged citizens not to collude and to act to prevent race-related violence.

"Silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit. We have to speak out, we must act," Biden said in a speech at Emory University, urging Americans to fight what he called "the resurgence of xenophobia."

On Thursday, the US authorities charged the assailant with killing eight people in an attack on massage centers in Atlanta.

And American media indicated that the attack sowed terror among the Asian group in the United States.

The accused, Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, denied having any racist motive, saying that he was facing "sex addiction" problems, but investigators considered it too early to resolve his motives.

Six of the victims are of Asian descent, including four women from South Korea, out of the seven victims are women. 

Across the United States, solidarity vigils were held with the victims and took the form of protests against the increase in attacks against people of Asian descent.

White House spokeswoman Jane Saki said, on Wednesday, that there was "no doubt" that the speech of former President Donald Trump's administration regarding the Corona virus pandemic had led to "an escalation of threats" against Asian Americans.

Trump has repeatedly been accused of "racism" because of his use of phrases such as "Chinese virus" when referring to the Coronavirus pandemic, while talking about that China could have stopped the spread of the virus in the world.

Source: AFP