VIENNA, 14 September 2004 — Hostility toward Muslims is “widespread” across much of the European Union, where followers of Islam are subject to verbal and physical attacks as well as discrimination in employment and housing, a human rights group said yesterday in a new report.
Distrustful attitudes toward Muslims have grown since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the Madrid train bombings this past March 11, said the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.
“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,” said Aaron Rhodes, the IHF’s executive director.
The hostility goes beyond anti-Muslim sentiment, the Vienna-based group said in a 37-page report, noting a rise in attacks on Muslims “ranging from slurs and insults in the street to vandalism and serious physical violence.” Its report focused on complaints in Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and Italy.
In Britain and Germany, Muslims have been targeted by police searches and arrests “in ways that have infringed on the rights of Muslims who have nothing to do with terrorism,” it said.
In Italy and Denmark, politicians have publicly branded Muslims as a security threat, and Muslims in Belgium and France have been caught up in government efforts to prohibit girls from wearing traditional head scarves.
“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,” Rhodes said.
Among the recent instances of hostility toward Muslims detailed in the report was an incident 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.
Across much of France, “Muslims have reportedly experienced that they are stopped, questioned and searched by police solely because of their Muslim appearance,” the IHF said.
In the six months preceding July, the French Association against Islamophobia received 101 complaints of discrimination, it said.
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 IHF said.
Estimates of the number of Muslims in the 25-nation EU range from 15 million to 25 million, said the group, which confined its study to countries in western Europe.
In 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,” the IHF 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,”’ it said.
