Hundreds of thousands sign petitions for KKK to be declared terrorist organization

Should the Ku Klux Klan be declared illegal or named a terrorist organization? That’s what people are calling for in petitions that have hundreds of thousands of signatures.

In the midst of nationwide protests following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery — all black people — petitions have targeted the white supremacist KKK group.

One petition calling for the KKK to be made illegal has more than 140,000 signatures.

“The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist hate group with historic background of terrorism, including countless physical assaults and murders,” the Change.org petition reads. “The KKK is still active in certain parts of the country and has public rallies. Hate should not be a way to bring the communities together, nor should it be allowed or tolerated.”

The KKK is the “oldest and most infamous of American hate groups” and has targeted people of color, religious minorities and the LGBTQ community, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Two additional petitions that were started to declare the KKK a terrorist organization have more than 100,000 signatures apiece. Another has more than 86,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

“It is dishonoring our black citizens by allowing a group that has tortured them from the very start to still exist,” one petition reads. “Abolish this hateful group that is carrying on a history of abuse, racism and murder. Abolish the KKK.”

The petitions come as President Donald Trump said last month he will be “designating antifa as a terrorist organization.” He said antifa, a movement of far-left activists that resist white supremacists and neo-Nazis, is behind “violence and vandalism” at protests, but officials have suggested white supremacists are behind the acts, The New York Times reported.

The federal government does not have the ability to declare “a domestic group as a terrorist organization,” according to The Hill.

Americans who assemble “with others who share the same hateful views” are protected by the First Amendment, Mary McCord, the former head of the Department of Justice National Security Division, said earlier this year, ABC News reported.

ISIS and al-Qaida are labeled as terror organizations because they are based abroad.

David Hickton, a former U.S. attorney who now directs the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security, said last year that white supremacy “is a greater threat than international terrorism right now.”

This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 11:57 AM with the headline "Hundreds of thousands sign petitions for KKK to be declared terrorist organization."