By Kanishka Singh and Jasper Ward

WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) – A drawing of a swastika that appeared at the U.S. Coast Guard’s primary recruit training center in New Jersey was removed, and the incident has been referred for further investigation, the service said on Monday, adding that it condemned the display of hate symbols.

“Following discovery of a hate symbol drawn on a bathroom wall in a building at Training Center Cape May, the Coast Guard immediately referred the matter to the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) for investigation – consistent with longstanding Coast Guard policy,” a U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson said in a statement. “This hate symbol was immediately removed.”

The Washington Post reported earlier on Monday that a Coast Guard instructor discovered the swastika drawing on Thursday evening on a men’s bathroom wall at the Cape May training center in southern New Jersey.

The swastika was adopted by Germany’s Nazi Party and became a symbol of far-right and white supremacist hatred.

The Coast Guard commandant, Admiral Kevin Lunday, traveled to the recruit training center and spoke to about 900 recruits and staff members to address the incident, the service said.

“Anyone who adheres to or advances hate or extremist ideology – get out. Leave. You don’t belong in the United States Coast Guard and we reject you,” Lunday said in a statement shared by the Coast Guard.

Rights advocates say President Donald Trump’s political rise has over the years fueled white supremacist and far-right rhetoric. Trump, a Republican, has said he condemns white supremacists and neo-Nazis. 

The Washington Post reported in November that the Coast Guard had revised language in its workplace harassment manual to recharacterize swastikas as “potentially divisive,” rather than characterizing them as hate symbols.

Lunday said at the time that “claims that the U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses or other extremist imagery as prohibited symbols are categorically false.”

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Jasper Ward in Washington)

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