Billionaire financier George Soros has pledged $10 million to fight against hate crimes after becoming concerned about numerous reports of swastikas and other hate crimes around the United States in recent months.
Soros is a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, and he told The New York Times in a phone interview that the hundreds of reports of possible hate crimes since the election have him “deeply troubled.”
“We must do something to push back against what’s happening here,” Soros told the Times.
Soros said his gift was not a political statement about President-elect Donald Trump, but he did say he believed statements made by Trump and his supporters during the campaign were “directly” responsible for the increase in hate crimes, or at least the reports of such.
“Certainly it got inflamed as a result of the campaign, and it broke out really afterwards,” he said.
According to Fortune, Soros’ nonprofit organization Open Society Forums will fund at least $5 million in grants to civil rights and community groups to develop plans to fight hate crimes and to aid victims. The remainder of the money will be used to improve systems currently in place to track hate crimes nationally.
The FBI said last week there was a 67 percent increase in hate crimes against Muslim Americans last year, and a 6 percent increase in hate crimes against all groups. More than 700 reports of possible hate crimes have poured into the Southern Poverty Law Center since the Nov. 8 election, The New York Times reported.
Trump asked the public not to harass minorities or immigrants in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Nov. 13
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