Hostility Towards Muslims grows in the EU

9/14/2004 10:15:00 AM GMT

A human rights group has reported that the hostility against Muslims is "widespread" across much of the European Union (EU), where the Muslim people are subject to verbal and physical attacks as well as discrimination in employment and housing.

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) said that the violent attitude towards Muslims have grown since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the USA and the Madrid train bombings this past March 11.

The IHF’s executive director, Aaron Rhodes, said: “As the fight against terrorism has been stepped up, and public debate has increasingly focused attention on Islamic extremism, Muslim minorities have come under growing pressure in these countries and elsewhere.”

The hostility goes beyond anti-Muslim sentiment according to the 37-page report. The report showed a rise in the attacks on Muslims "ranging from slurs and insults in the street to vandalism and serious physical violence,” it said.

The complains found in the report were mainly in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and Italy.

In Britain and Germany, Muslims are being the target of searches and arrests by the police. The report says that those arrests were done: "in ways that have infringed on the rights of Muslims who have nothing to do with terrorism.”

As for Italy and Denmark, politicians have publicly announced that Muslims are a security threat, and Muslims in Belgium and France have been caught up in government efforts to forbid Muslim girls from wearing their religious outfit.

Rhodes said: "In all these cases, moderate and peaceful Muslims have been victimized because of the views and acts of a minority of extremist Muslims who advocate violence and intolerance.”

One of the hostile incidents against Muslims that is detailed in the report was in June in Strasbourg, France, where vandals painted black swastikas and other neo-Nazi symbols on more than 50 graves at a Muslim cemetery and sprayed a wall with threats against a regional Muslim council.

All over France, "Muslims have reportedly experienced that they are stopped, questioned and searched by police solely because of their Muslim appearance,” the report said.

The report also said that in the six months preceding July, the French Association against Islam phobia received 101 complaints of discrimination.

It added that even in countries such as Denmark, known worldwide for its strong human rights stance, authorities are rejecting more Muslim applications for asylum, cutting social benefits for Islamic refugees and foreigners and tightening restrictions on permanent residence.

The group that confined its study to countries in Western Europe, reported that the number of Muslims living in the 25-nation EU range from 15 million to 25 million.

Last May, the EU widened to take in 10 mostly ex-communist newcomer nations from Eastern Europe in a historic enlargement that boosted its total population to 450 million. Although Muslim communities in most western EU nations are mainly composed of post-World War II labor migrants and their descendants as well as refugees and their families, they have a "shared experience of intolerance and discrimination," said the report.

It also said: "While many Muslims are born and raised in the countries where they reside and are citizens of these countries, they are typically still perceived as `foreigners.’”