Balkans | Publication of the European Islamophobia Report 2022

The European Islamophobia Report (EIR) found that in 2022 anti-Muslims (Islamophobia) have been institutionalized in European countries.

assistant. doctor. Enes Bayraklı and Assoc. doctor. The European Islamophobia Report 2022, edited by Farid Hafez, has been published.

The report, supported by many institutions and organizations in the United States of America and Europe, discussed the effects of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and how anti-Muslim legislation and measures developed in countries such as Austria and France, and anti-Islam and anti-immigrant. events in European countries.

According to the report, which includes assessments of 23 countries in Europe, some European countries have taken steps to contribute to the institutionalization of anti-Muslims in 2022. There has been an increase in attacks targeting religions in some European countries.

Anti-Muslims have been institutionalized in European countries

As a reflection of institutional anti-Muslims, the report states that 10 countries participated in the “Vienna Forum against Discrimination and Extremism” organized for the second time by Austrian Minister of Integration Susan Raab, and Raab’s annual budget for “documenting political Islam” center “between 500 thousand euros (about 10 years One million pounds) to 1.7 million euros (about 35 million pounds).

In France, where the pressure on the Muslim population has increased, 1,727 Islamic institutions have been seized, 118 have been closed, and 10 million euros (about 205 million lire) have been confiscated between January and August 2022.

While the “secular plan” for the dress of Muslim women and girls is being implemented in France, teachers and administrators are forced to identify and report girls in long skirts and file disciplinary complaints.

In Belgium, and another European country, the Minister of Justice, Vincent van Quickenborn, threatened to expose one of the imams of the Great Mosque of Brussels if he did not resign, with the support of the state.

Van Quickenborn, who also revoked the license of the Executive Board of Belgian Muslims (EMB), cited “interference of external forces” as the reason.

The report stated that the children of Muslim immigrants in Denmark were separated from their families for 35 hours a week and were taught “Danish values”, and it was also indicated that the headscarf ban came to the fore here.

The report also included detailed analyzes of anti-Muslim rhetoric from politicians and the media in 23 European countries, attacks on Muslims and Islamic institutions, and anti-Muslims in institutions.

Austria

The headquarters of the Austrian Union of Turkish Islamic Culture (ATİB) in the country was also attacked in 2022. While the windows of the headquarters were smashed, anti-Islamic words were written on the walls of the Green Mosque.

When the Bosnian Zamzam Association wanted to expand the mosque, racist groups protested against it.

Belgium

In Belgium, where places of worship are frequently attacked, the school’s license application was rejected on the grounds that it was close to the idea of ​​a “national vision”. The Minister of Education for the Flemish region, Ben Witts, announced that they did not accept the application, claiming that it “taught ideas contrary to the democratic values ​​of Belgium”.

In addition to promoting human rights, equal opportunities and rights, 8.8 percent of the nearly 3,000 complaints filed with the Federal Center for Equal Rights (UNEA), which works to combat discrimination, consisted of those who said they were being mistreated because of their faith. Half of these complaints are discrimination and a third are hate speech.

Denmark

According to a survey conducted by the Danish Institute for Human Rights in March 2022, immigrants are 27% more likely to be detained without a police complaint than Danes, and the rate of detention of migrant children is 45% higher.

According to the statistics issued by the police in the country, 521 hate crimes were committed in 2021 that were the subject of the complaint. While 164 of them targeted the beliefs of individuals and institutions, nearly 40% of the victims were Muslims.

Of the 792 hate crimes committed in Denmark in 2017-2021, 389 were committed against Muslims.

Finland

According to the report published by the Finnish Police, in 2021, while hate crimes increased for the first time after 2017, Muslims were the group most exposed to hate crimes.

Rika Peora, leader of the Real Finns Party, known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric, stated in the early warning report that only Finns should benefit from Finnish development, not Muslims and other minorities.

France

Although no statistics were published from the Home Office, according to the report published by the Anti-Islamophobia Group in Europe, 501 complaints were filed in 2022.

According to the group’s statement, it was reported that among these complaints, which amounted to 384 in 2021, most of them were discrimination and humiliation, and crimes were committed within the scope of combating extremism.

Politicians in the country are trying to sway voters with their anti-Muslim rhetoric. In the report, for example, far-right politician Eric Zemmour’s speech to the police stated that “the police are at war with French Muslims and immigrants from underdeveloped regions.”

Germany

According to a survey conducted by the German Center for Integration and Migration Studies, 33 percent of the country’s population believes that some races are inherently more hardworking than others.

Those who believe there is racism and discrimination also make up 61 percent of the respondents. In this environment, the percentage of those who say they have experienced racism in Germany is 22 percent, while the percentage of those who say they have witnessed racism is 45 percent.

According to a police statement in Germany, where 58% of minorities stated that they had experienced racism at some point in their lives, 364 crimes against Muslims were recorded in 2022, 26 of which were attacks on mosques.

According to the 2022 survey of the Leipzig Autoritarismus-Studie, which studies xenophobia, democracy and authoritarianism, 70.2% of respondents support banning Muslim immigrants, while 79.3% feel they are foreigners in Germany.

In the results of the same poll in 2020, only 24.7 percent supported banning Muslim immigrants.

Greece

An organization called the Racial Violence Recording Group released a report in 2022 examining records from the past two years. Accordingly, there was a decrease in racist and discriminatory attacks in 2021 compared to 2020. It was reported that 72 crimes considered racist were committed in the country, 28 of which were against immigrants.

Greek police announced 44 racist attacks in 2021, 17 of them attacks on faith.

The report also showed that a 16-year-old Pakistani boy residing in one of the refugee centers in the country was beaten by a group and two people rescued him, then a group of about 40 people came to the center and threw stones and bricks at the building.

Dutchman

According to statistics from the police, 67 percent of attacks on faith are committed against Muslims in the Netherlands, where attacks on Muslim places of worship are frequent, and where anti-Islam groups barbecue around places of worship during Ramadan.

While 39 of the 63 people who said they experienced discrimination at work were Muslims, 26 of the 30 people who said they experienced discrimination at school were Muslims.

In the country where Muslims file 11 out of 26 complaints of discrimination in public places and 10 out of 15 complaints of discrimination in the media, according to the Movisie report, which conducts research on discrimination, 79 percent of the 390 applications made to anti-discrimination institutions in 2022 were made. Muslims.

Spain

According to data from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, as an increasing number of hate crimes are committed each year since 2019, there is an increase in Islamophobic and anti-racist rhetoric on social media, according to a report by the Spanish Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia (OPRAX).

According to Obrax’s research from July to August 2022, 20 percent of all hate speech used on social media in the country was anti-Muslim rhetoric, compared to 14.7 percent a year earlier.

United kingdom

According to the statement issued by the British government, between March 2021 and March 2022, there was a 26 percent increase in crimes against Muslims in England and Wales compared to the previous period.

The statement said that 3,459 out of 8,730 crimes against religion were committed against Muslims, and that at least 35 percent of the more than 1,800 mosques in the country were attacked at least once a year.

About half of the attacks against Muslims were assaults on buildings and theft, while 17 percent were of people on buildings.

EU countries should include the recommendations of the European Commission in their action plans

The report also made concrete policy recommendations to combat anti-Muslims.

In the list of recommendations, in which it was stated that the recommendations of the European Committee against Racism and Intolerance of the Council of Europe should be taken into account, it was emphasized that they should be included in the various national procedures. Plans of the member states of the European Union.

In the report, which stated that the findings of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) and other EU institutions should be taken seriously and the harm done by the anti-terrorism law to Muslim societies in Europe should be acknowledged, the report stated that he attended the Vienna Austrian Anti-Discrimination Forum And extremism in the context of integration of the European Union countries, he pointed out that it must be opposed.

“Ukraine war showed racist politics”

Commenting on the report submitted to the correspondent of the Algerian News Agency Assoc. doctor. Berekley stated that although the Russo-Ukrainian war set the European agenda in 2022, discussions about Muslims took place in the background.

The war also demonstrated Europe’s two-faced attitude, Berkeley noted:

The war in Ukraine exposed Europe’s racist policies towards refugees and immigrants from the Muslim world. The rhetoric up until now was that Europe could not accept new refugees because Europe was too full. But the Europeans showed that this is not the case, by accepting millions of refugees in a few days as soon as the war broke out in Ukraine. So the war in Ukraine showed us that behind all these discussions lies a very dangerous racist policy, the fact that Muslims are not accepted in Europe, the borders are closed, thousands of people have been killed in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean, their boats have sunk and they are not saved while they are being watched.

AA