Beyond the Wall: Part 1 - The Rise of Germany's Far Right; Part 2: From Germany to Bulgaria, What Happened to Hope? | People & Power

There's a Social Pandemic Poisoning Europe: Hatred of Muslims

THE GUARDIAN: If anti-Muslim prejudice is not targeted, steps to counter racism in Europe in the wake of BLM protests will be meaningless

Rarely does the EU act so swiftly. Less than four months since the killing of George Floyd in police custody and the Black Lives Matter campaign that spilled into Europe and galvanised continent-wide protests, the EU is appointing its first ever anti-racism coordinator. This brilliant idea will make little sense, however, if anti-Muslim hatred is not part of their portfolio. Because instead of building a “truly anti-racist union”, as the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, would wish, we have so far built an anti-Muslim one.

Prejudice against Muslims exists in every corner of Europe. Not only do we collectively devalue and discriminate against Europeans who follow Islam, but the incidence of violence against Muslims is increasing.

We have known since the refugee and migration crisis of 2015 and the jihadist terrorist attacks in France, Spain and Germany that Muslims suffer from an exceptionally bad reputation in our societies. In 2019, research conducted for the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Religion Monitor yet again confirmed widespread mistrust towards Muslims across Europe. In Germany and Switzerland, every second respondent said they perceived Islam as a threat. In the UK, two in five share this perception. In Spain and France, about 60% think Islam is incompatible with the “west”. In Austria, one in three doesn’t want to have Muslim neighbours.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) confirms these findings in its most recent paper on the rise and meaning of hate crimes against Muslims. So does Europe’s police coordinating body Europol: in 2019, far-right terrorism soared.

What is more surprising is how quickly anti-Muslim racism has turned violent. » | Patrycja Sasnal and Yasemin El Menouar | Monday, September 28, 2020

Hungary Accused of Fuelling Xenophobia with Anti-migrant Rhetoric

THE GUARDIAN: Council of Europe’s damning report says human rights violations must be urgently addressed

Europe’s top human rights watchdog has accused Hungary’s government of violating people’s rights and using anti-migrant rhetoric that fuels “xenophobic attitudes, fear and hatred”.

A damning report from the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, concluded: “Human rights violations in Hungary have a negative effect on the whole protection system and the rule of law” and should “be addressed as a matter of urgency”.

The commissioner, whose report is based on meeting government ministers and civil society groups during a five-day visit to Hungary in February, issued a devastating critique of the Hungarian asylum system that has resulted in “practically systemic rejection of asylum applications”. Voicing alarm at the “excessive use of violence” by police in removing foreign nationals, she criticised a policy of denying food to those refused asylum. » | Jennifer Rankin in Brussels | Tuesday, May 21, 2019

The Poles Leaving the UK after Brexit - BBC News

A rise in hate crime against the UK's Polish community is making some of them think about leaving the country as a result

Cameron Responsible for Rise in Xenophobia & Racism Abuse in UK - Watchdog

A report condemning “considerable intolerant political discourse in the UK, particularly focusing on immigration” was published by the Council of Europe’s Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) on Tuesday. David Cameron was singled out, in particular, for describing asylum-seekers arriving from the Middle East and North Africa as a “swarm.”

Inside Story: What's Fueling Hatred and Intolerance in the UK?

Racism in Britain is on the rise as well as homophobia, anti-semitism and anti-Muslim violence. Presenter: Folly Bah Thibault

Sadiq Khan: 'Leave' Camp Must Explain Rising Xenophobia - UpFront

"Brexit Will Affect Our Culture as Racism and Xenophobia Will Rise" | 24.06.2016

Maajid Nawaz discusses the implications of the EU referendum result which was in favour of leaving the UK leaving the EU. In the talk, Maajid stated that "Brexit will not have a long term effect on our economy or counter-terrorism, but it will effect our culture as racism and xenophobia will rise"

We Are Young We Are Strong: An Almost Forgotten Tragedy

Read the BBC article here | Christian Blauvelt | Friday, April 24, 2015


Wir sind jung. Wir sind stark

South Africa's History Of Burning Hatred

Fear and Foreigners in South Africa (2008) - Xenophobia erupts into violence

Germany Marks 70 Years Since the Liberation of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Petr Mischtschuk, from Ukraine, was imprisoned as a 14-year-old
by the Nazis at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen concentration
camps. He lays a flower during ceremnonies marking the 70th
anniversary of the liberation of Sachsenhausen.

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Berlin: Germany's foreign minister has warned against racism and xenophobia at a ceremony marking 70 years since the liberation of the Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp near Berlin.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined Holocaust survivors and other guests on Sunday at the site which was built while Hitler celebrated the 1936 Olympic Games, and where tens of thousands of Jews and other prisoners died.

Mr Steinmeier said Germany had an enduring responsibility not to forget its horrific past, which meant it must "stand against injustice, against any form of xenophobia and discrimination".

He pointed to recent anti-foreigner attacks, cases of arson of refugee centres and anti-Islamic street protests as the number of asylum-seekers rises sharply. » | AFP | Monday, April 20, 2015

Euro 2012: Antisemitic Echoes That Threaten Celebration of Football
THE GUARDIAN: Michael Goldfarb discovers an ugly xenophobia rooted in the catastrophic destruction visited on Poland and Ukraine by totalitarian regimes

Euro 2012 was supposed to be an unalloyed celebration of not just football, but also the renaissance of Poland and Ukraine, the two nations that suffered most in the conflict between the twin poles of 20th-century totalitarianism: Nazism and Soviet communism.

But a darkness still pervades both countries. On a recent visit to Poland and Ukraine, I couldn't help but be struck by it. In Warsaw, which I had visited briefly 17 years ago, I was amazed at how much the past drapes itself around the city's prosperous facade [sic].

There are massive, agonised monuments everywhere: to the dead of the Warsaw Uprising, to the fallen and murdered in the east, the martyrs of Katyn. Every step a tourist takes seems to be guiding him on a tour of Polish suffering

In Lviv in western Ukraine, a place I had never visited before, I found the darkness in people's souls. The city survived the worst of the war. Its perfectly preserved medieval heart is wrapped in a ribbon of Austro-Hungarian imperial boulevards and architecture.

But conversation after conversation with people from all walks of life reveal them looking backwards into the bleak times. Perhaps that's to be expected given the catastrophic destruction visited on the two countries, but it has led many to a world-view that is a perversion of the golden rule: do unto others as others have done unto you. » | Michael Goldfarb | Saturday, June 02, 2012

Nick Clegg: Public Fury at Euro Crisis Will Fuel Extremism
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A wave of “extremism and xenophobia” will sweep across Europe unless political leaders take urgent action to deal with the debt crisis, Nick Clegg has warned.

The Deputy Prime Minister predicted that arguments in Britain about whether to pull out of the European Union would be “like a small side show compared to the rise of political extremism” in the next few years.

In his bleakest assessment to date, Mr Clegg admitted that his beloved European project faces a “huge” crisis of confidence as the public loses faith in the EU “as a whole”.

Mr Clegg’s intervention followed warnings from Cabinet ministers that the eurozone debt crisis is approaching a “moment of clarity” when it is “quite likely” that Greece will be forced out of the single currency.

In an interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, the Liberal Democrat leader said EU nations are “condemned to work with each other” but warned that nine European governments have “fallen” since 2009.

“Everybody should be more active,” he said. “At the moment, what’s happening is you have one emergency summit after another; you have one election after the other; you have one bail out after the other.

“This cannot carry on because the combination of economic insecurity and political paralysis, we know this from the history of our continent, is the ideal recipe for an increase in extremism and xenophobia. » | Tim Ross, and James Kirkup | Monday, May 21, 2012

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Ken Clarke attacks 'nationalist' eurosceptic Tories: MPs who want a referendum on membership of the European Union are “right-wing nationalists” who would bring "disaster" to Britain, Kenneth Clarke has said. ¶ The Justice Secretary, who is regarded as the most "europhile" Conservative Cabinet minister, said calls to consider withdrawing from the EU were "a dangerous irrelevance" to the economic crisis. » | Tim Ross, Political Correspondent | Sunday, May 20, 2012

Economic Crisis Fueling Racism Says Council of Europe
EXPATICA.COM: The ongoing economic crisis has fueled racism and xenophobia, a Council of Europe report said on Thursday, while calling on European nations to bolster their fight against hate speech.

"Welfare cuts, diminished job opportunities and a consequent rise in intolerance towards both immigrant groups and older historical minorities are worrying trends," the report by the Strasbourg-based body's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance said.

"Xenophobic rhetoric is now part of mainstream debate and extremists are increasingly using social media to channel their views, whilst discrimination against the Roma continues to worsen," the commission's report noted. » | AFP | Thursday, May 03, 2012

Xenophobic Violence in South Africa
Poor South Africans are taking out their frustrations on poor foreigners.
Watch NYT video here

After Attacks in Russia, Fears of Xenophobia
Lilya Paizulayeva, a Chechen in Moscow, worries about profiling and said, “This whole week I have felt like a stranger in this city.” Photo: The New York Times
THE NEW YORK TIMES: MOSCOW — Lilya Paizulayeva descended into the subway anxiously, trying to keep her distance from the crowds and the newly deployed and heavily armed police officers. She cringed at the train’s loud metallic shriek, pressing herself to the wall.

She was not scared of suicide bombers — she feared being taken for one herself.

With her jet-black hair and large dark eyes, Ms. Paizulayeva, a 26-year-old native of Chechnya, looks very much the daughter of Russia’s fiery North Caucasus region, from where, investigators say, two young women traveled to Moscow to blow themselves up last week in the rush-hour throngs, killing at least 40 people.

While for many the attacks are an unsettling reminder of the female suicide bombers who have terrorized this city for years, women from the Caucasus, particularly from Chechnya, say they worry about the return of the arbitrary arrests, xenophobic attacks and open hostility that many experienced after similar terrorist attacks in the past.

“Psychologically, I feel a kind of alarm inside,” said Ms. Paizulayeva, who was born in Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, and fled to Moscow in 1995 with her family when the war there started. “Though I’m dressed like a local, I think that perhaps someone could attack me in the metro,” she said. “This whole week I have felt like a stranger in this city.”

Though Russian citizens, Chechens and others from the North Caucasus are often seen as foreigners in Russia, especially here in the capital, and are frequently associated with immigrants from the countries of Central Asia that were former Soviet republics. More than 1,000 miles from Moscow, Chechnya has its own language, religion and customs, as well as a history of violent separatism that many in the rest of the country find alien in the best of times and threatening in the worst.

There have already been several reports of revenge attacks against people from the Caucasus in the wake of the bombings. Last week a brawl broke out on a subway train when a group of passengers insisted on inspecting the bags of several people who appeared to be from the Caucasus, according to the Sova Center, an organization that tracks xenophobic violence.

Attacks against people with darker skin and hair typical of those from the Caucasus are not uncommon in Russia. >>> Michael Schwirtz | Easter Monday, April 05, 2010

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The Kremlin's Helplessness – Discontent Grows over Moscow's Impotency in Dealing with Terror: Following last week's terrorist attacks on the Moscow metro, Russians are now fearing a fresh wave of violence. Many feel the Kremlin has been hopeless in dealing with Caucasus terror and that the government does more to protect its own power than the people. >>> Matthias Schepp in Moscow | Easter Monday, April 05, 2010

German Killer of Muslim 'Veil Martyr' Jailed for Life
THE TELEGRAPH: Alex Wiens, a German who stabbed a pregnant Egyptian woman, Marwa El-Sherbiny, to death in a courtroom in front of her husband and three-year old son, has been jailed for life for her murder.

The case of Alex Wiens, 28, who has admitted holding anti-Islamic and xenophobic views, shocked Germany and incensed the Muslim world, sparking protests from Egypt to Iran.

Security was exceptionally high for the trial, with 200 police officers and snipers securing the court in Dresden, the east German city where the killing took place in July.

Wiens, of Russian origin, was convicted of murdering Marwa El-Sherbiny, whom he stabbed 16 times with a kitchen knife, and given the maximum penalty. He also stabbed her husband Elwy Okaz, who was trying to defend her.

Their son, Mustafa, watched as his mother bled to death in the courtroom.

Mrs El-Sherbiny came to be knwon [sic] as the "veil martyr" as she was wearing a headscarf when Wiens murdered her.

Wiens was shielded by bulletproof glass, his head covered by a hood, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses, and his ankles shackled as the verdict and sentencing were read. >>> | Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Egypt Mourns 'Headscarf Martyr'
BBC: The body of a Muslim woman, killed in a German courtroom by a man convicted of insulting her religion, has been taken back to her native Egypt for burial.

Marwa Sherbini is being hailed as the shahida, or martyr, of the Hijab. Photo: BBC
Marwa Sherbini, 31, was stabbed 18 times by Axel W, who is now under arrest in Dresden for suspected murder.

Husband Elwi Okaz is also in a critical condition in hospital, after being injured as he tried to save his wife.

Ms Sherbini had sued her killer after he called her a "terrorist" because of her headscarf.

The case has attracted much attention in Egypt and the Muslim world.

German prosecutors have said the 28-year-old attacker, identified only as Axel W, was driven by a deep hatred of foreigners and Muslims. >>> | Monday, July 06, 2009

Fear and Hate on the Rise: Europe Revives Its Old Monsters
FRANCE 24: Europe has elected its angriest, most eurosceptic and xenophobic parliament ever - with a battalion of hard-right parties breaking through for the first time on a wave of anti-immigrant feeling and an unholy cocktail of both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

But while there is no denying the fury of the "angry middle-aged men" apparently responsible for electing the violent anti-Roma Jobbik party in Hungary, the BNP in Britain, Heinz-Christian Strache's Third Reich nostalgics in Austria and Geert Wilders Freedom Party in Holland - who alone on the extreme right is proud to call himself a Zionist - the new parliament will also have a caucus of new and surprising progressive voices.

Sweden's Pirate Party, who have campaigned for freer internet downloading and a loosening of copyright restrictions, have struck a chord among the young everywhere, and France's crusading anti-corruption magistrate Eva Joly - elected on the Green ticket - and her Italian opposite number Antonio Di Pietro are likely to hold many in Brussels and beyond it to account.

This is also a much more colourful and controversial parliament than the one that went before. If half of the parliament's accountability problem is its lack of visibility, a bit of personality surely has to be a good thing - granted, of course, that it does not turn into a theatre of hate. But even that unedifying prospect may prompt the majority of Europeans who did not bother to vote to do so the next time. >>> By Fiachra Gibbons/RFI | Sunday, June 07, 2009

Merkel Urges Anti-racist Action
Photo of Angela Merkel courtesy of the BBC
BBC: As Germany marks the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht anti-Semitic riots, Chancellor Angela Merkel said all Germans must act against racism.

At a ceremony at Berlin's largest synagogue, she said Germans "cannot be silent" in the face of anti-Semitism.

Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, is often regarded as the starting point of the Holocaust.

Nazis ransacked Jewish homes and businesses and burned synagogues as police and firefighters looked on.

More than 90 Jewish people were murdered and about 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps on 9 and 10 November 1938.

Millions were killed by the Nazi regime, including about six million Jewish people.

'Do something'

"Indifference is the first step towards endangering essential values," Mrs Merkel said at the commemoration service with the Central Council of Jews at the Rykestrasse synagogue in Berlin.

"Xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism must never be given an opportunity in Europe again.

The Rykestrasse synagogue was damaged in the Kristallnacht rampage but has been recently restored.

The anniversary comes at a time of concern that far right sentiments are on the rise in Germany.

"There was no storm of protest against the Nazis, but silence, shrugged shoulders and people looking away - from individual citizens to large parts of the church," Mrs Merkel said.

"We cannot be silent, we cannot be indifferent when Jewish cemeteries are desecrated and rabbis are insulted on the street."

On Sunday evening, a concert entitled "Tu Was" [sic], or "Do Something", will be held at Berlin's Tempelhof airport. >>> | Sunday, November 9, 2008

70 Jahre Kristallnacht: Ein Benefizkonzert initiiert von Daniel Hope >>>

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>