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Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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?????????????????????????????????????????????????Thursday, August 29, 2019
Ilhan Omar on President Donald Trump: 'I believe he is fascist'
US congresswoman has faced barrage of racist attacks from US president and his supporters this week
By MEE staff- 18 July 2019
Ilhan Omar called Donald Trump fascist after the US president stood by
as his supporters launched into a racist chant against the Democratic
congresswoman.
Omar condemned Trump for what happened at the rally in North Carolina a day earlier, when the crowd chanted "Send her back!" after the president's latest tirade against the Somali-born representative from Minnesota.
"We have said this president is racist. We have condemned his racist remarks. I believe he is fascist," Omar told reporters on Thursday.
"I want to remind people that this is what this president and his
supporters have turned our country - that is supposed to be a country
where we allow democratic debate and dissent to take place.
"And so this is not about me. This is about us fighting for what this country truly should be."
Omar is
Somali-American and came to the United States as a refugee. She is one
of the first two Muslim women ever elected to the US Congress last year.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump - who has faced a barrage of criticism for
recent racist comments he made against Omar and some of her Democratic
Party colleagues - attempted to distance himself from the chant.
'We have said this president is racist, we have condemned his racist remarks. I believe he is fascist'- US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar about Donald Trump
"I felt a little bit badly about it," Trump told reporters at the White House, as reported by Reuters.
"I would say that I was not happy with it. I disagreed with it. But again I didn't say that. They did. And I disagreed with."
But a video widely circulated on social media showed the president standing silently at a podium as his supporters shouted the racist phrase.
He paused for several seconds during the chants, which also came after Trump launched into a tirade against the congresswoman.
"Tonight I have a suggestion for the hate-filled extremists who are
constantly trying to tear our country down," Trump said at the rally.
"They never have anything good to say. That's why I say: 'Hey, if they don't like it, let them leave. Let them leave'."
Trump earlier this week also tweeted that Omar and other progressive
Democrats should "go back" to the "crime-infested places from which they
came" - a comment that draws on a historical white supremacist trope
against people of colour.
While Trump did not specify anyone, his comments were interpreted to
refer to four congresswomen known as "The Squad": Omar, Rashida Tlaib of
Michigan, New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley of
Massachusetts.
The congresswomen were elected to the US House of Representatives last
year and have been some of Trump's most prominent critics.
Tlaib is Palestinian-American, Ocasio-Cortez's parents are from Puerto
Rico, and Pressley is the first African-American woman elected from the
state of Massachusetts.
The Democratic-controlled House passed a symbolic resolution on
Tuesday condemning Trump for his "racist comments" against the
lawmakers, which it said "legitimised fear of new Americans and people
of colour".
Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat whose district
includes large Arab and Muslim communities, welcomed the passage of the
resolution, condemning Trump for using "hatred and fear" to divide
Americans.
"Throughout the course of our country’s history, language that is
xenophobic, racist, sexist, intolerant, prejudiced, or discriminatory
has divided and pitted us against each other," Dingell said in a
statement.