Muslims across Europe are grappling with a “worrying wave” of racism fueled in part by “dehumanizing anti-Muslim rhetoric”.
This is the conclusion of the European Union (EU)‘s leading rights agency after it published a survey in which almost half of Muslim respondents said they had recently experienced discrimination.
The survey, published on Thursday by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) of 9,600 Muslims in 13 member states, found that racism and discrimination are woven into most aspects of their lives.
People reported bullying of children at school, unequal access to employment opportunities, and prejudice when it comes to renting or buying housing, according to the Guardian.
Although the survey was conducted before the October 7th, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel, which led to fierce retaliation against Gaza, the Vienna-based agency said information from civil society organizations and national authorities suggested that the number of anti-Muslim incidents had continued to rise since conflict broke out.
“We are witnessing a worrying increase in racism and discrimination against Muslims in Europe,” said the director of the agency, Sirpa Rautio, and added:
“This is fueled by conflict in the Middle East and exacerbated by the dehumanizing anti-Muslim rhetoric we see across the continent.”
The FRA, speaking to Muslims in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden, found that 47 percent of them said they had experienced racism in the five years before 2022 which is more than 39 percent in 2016.
“What we see is that the situation of Muslims is getting worse,” said Vida Beresneviciūtė, co-author of the study.
In the 13 member states surveyed, 39 percent of Muslims reported discrimination in the labor market. Few appeared to find it useful to report their experiences, with only six percent saying they had made a complaint or report about a recent incident.
The FRA called on member states to implement stronger sanctions for discrimination and hate crimes, as well as to collect equality data, including data on ethnic or racial origin, to enable policymakers to set better targets and monitor progress. Unlike the United Kingdom (UK), most EU countries do not collect census data on racial or ethnic diversity, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
Photo: illustration
