Coalition unites in fight against hate crimes; Hindu American Foundation joins

May 18 :
A coalition of more than 240 national organisations committed to advancing and safeguarding civil and human rights in America has welcomed the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), a nonprofit advocacy group representing the Hindu American community, to its ranks. In a letter of support for the bipartisan Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act (IRPHA), the Foundation joined 32 other organisations in addressing and preventing hate crimes. The Task Force consists of civil rights, community, religious, and educational groups.

Improving hate crime reporting and data gathering is essential for successfully combating bias-motivated crimes; this bipartisan bill was presented on March 13th with that goal in mind.

For almost three decades, the FBI's Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) has offered the most thorough national overview of hate violence in the United States. According to the coalition, the data from federal, state, municipal, and tribal police agencies is insufficient and inconsistent because reporting hate crime statistics to the FBI is voluntary.

To be eligible for federal funds under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, local governments with populations over 100,000 will be required by the Improving Reporting to Prevent Hate Act (IRPHA) to report credible hate crime statistics to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting programme. This federal funding is also available to organisations in these areas that work to raise public awareness and education about hate crimes.

Because of problems with data collecting, many hate crimes, despite their increasing frequency, do not get reported. We need a shift now. The #IRPHA bill is an important step towards accurate reporting of hate crimes, and HAF has teamed up with @civilrightsorg to support it. Members of Congress, take immediate action. This is a life-or-death situation," HAF wrote on X. Among the many other groups represented in the Leadership Conference are the Sikh Coalition, the Centre for Security, Race and Rights, the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice, among many more.