A rise in right-wing radicalism is fuelling the spread of xenophobia and extremist attitudes towards religious minorities in Europe, says Minority Rights Group International.
MRG’s flagship annual State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples report, themed for 2010 on religious minorities, was launched in Budapest, Hungary. It suggests that victimisation against religious groups is in many respects the “new racism”.
The report says that ultra right-wing parties, aiming to establish themselves in mainstream political arenas in Europe, justify their anti-immigration, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric by stoking fears that religious minorities and immigrants are a threat to modern societies.
“Successes in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, and at the national parliamentary level, have allowed these populist right-wing parties to shift formerly far-right ideas, on immigration for example, into the mainstream,” says Carl Soderbergh, MRG’s Director of Policy and Communications.
The report details a sharp rise in Islamophobia in Europe in 2009.
In May 2009, ultra right-wing groups held an “anti-Islam” rally to oppose the building of a large new mosque in Cologne, Germany. When the authorities in Denmark’s capital city Copenhagen approved the country’s first purpose-built mosque, the extreme-right Danish People’s Party launched an anti-mosque campaign in September.
Following a campaign by the ultra-conservative Swiss People’s Party, a sizeable majority of Switzerland’s cantons backed a referendum in November 2009, which proposed a ban on the building of new minarets in mosques.
“MRG is deeply concerned about the infringement of religious freedom that the Swiss ban on minarets, and other European Islamophobic initiatives, supposes for the Muslim community. We urge European authorities to abide by their obligations under international law and protect their populations’ freedom to practice their religion and be free from discrimination,” added Soderbergh.
See also ENGAGE, 2 July 2010