Will Measures to Combat Discrimination and Intolerance Against Muslims Succeed in the Old Continent?

After an 18-month gap that drew criticism from Muslim rights groups, the European Union has finally appointed a new coordinator to combat Islamophobia.

It is noteworthy that the role of the coordinator was created in 2015 as a point of contact for groups working against racism and Islamophobia, and the previous coordinator, Tommaso Chiamparino, left this position in July 2021.

In November 2022, the European Parliament criticized the delay and urged the Commission to expedite the appointment of a successor to Chiamparino.

The European measure comes recently in conjunction with the issuance of alarming numbers in its annual report by the Collective for Countering Islamophobia in Europe, including: 467 incidents of racism, 128 of hate and provocation, 71 of insults, 59 of moral harassment, 44 of defamation, 27 of physical assault, and 33 of the Anti-Separation Act.

The report believed that the French presidential elections were another bidding moment in the context of anti-Islam, as well as the rise of the extreme right to rule in various European countries, such as Italy and Sweden.

 

New Coordinator

Following the recurring incidents of desecration of the Holy Qur’an in various regions of Europe and the penetration of racism, discrimination, and intolerance speeches against Muslims, the European Commission recently appointed a new coordinator on combating anti-Muslim hatred.

The Commission announced the appointment of French diplomat Marion Lalisse, a new coordinator to combat individual and systemic hatred and discrimination against Muslims.

“Lalisse will work with EU member states and European institutions, as well as with civil society and academia, to strengthen the response to anti-Muslim hatred,” it said in a statement.

It added that the new coordinator will be the main point of contact for organizations working in this regard in the EU, noting that she has great experience in working closely with civil society organizations within the EU and the Islamic world.

Lalisse will work with two other EU officials, Michaela Moua and Katherina von Schnurbein, to tackle the fight against racism and anti-Semitism.

Each of them has an annual budget of €180,000 a year to spend on holding workshops, meetings, and studies.

On her part, Marion welcomed her appointment, and said in a tweet on her account: “I am honored to be appointed today as the new EU Coordinator on combating anti-Muslim hatred and discrimination,” adding that this is “an important topic that requires our joint efforts and commitment.”

Marion had studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, the College of Europe, and the University of Toulouse Le Merrill.

She also studied Arabic in France and Arab countries and speaks it fluently.

She held the position of Deputy Ambassador of the EU to Yemen and held various positions in the EU missions to Ghana, Mauritania, and Morocco within the European assistance program for the Turkish Cypriots.

 

Hard Mission

The statement quoted EU Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli as saying that the task of the new coordinator includes confronting hatred and structural and individual discrimination against Muslims.

She added, “We must combat Islamophobia in all areas, including education, employment, and social policy.”

“We must also collect data on all cases of Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslims and monitor and combat any such manifestations,” she added.

The EU’s spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa, Luis Bueno, also welcomed the appointment of the new coordinator.

In a tweet he posted on his Twitter account, he said that this matter will strengthen the fight against individual and structural hatred and discrimination against Muslims in the EU, praising Lalisse’s ability to speak Arabic.

In the same context, the Mission of Saudi Arabia to the EU welcomed the appointment of Marion Lalisse, wishing her success in confronting Islamophobia and putting an end to hatred against religions.

 

Islamophobia in Europe

The appointment of Marion Lalisse to the new position came days after an international and global crisis sparked by a number of extremists in Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands after the burning of the Holy Qur’an.

On January 21, the leader of the Danish far-right Hard Line Party, Rasmus Paludan, burned a copy of the Holy Qur’an near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm under strict police protection.

Two days later, Edwin Wagensveld, the leader of the extremist anti-Islam PEGIDA movement in the Netherlands, tore up a copy of the Holy Qur’an in the Dutch city of The Hague.

On a large scale, these two cases of abuse caused an uproar in the Islamic world and drew Arab, Islamic, and international condemning responses. Demonstrations also took place in several Islamic countries to denounce what happened.

It is noteworthy that the phenomenon of Islamophobia is growing increasingly in Western countries, and its manifestations appear in the physical and psychological aggression against Muslims, the burning of religious symbols, exclusion due to belief and dress from positions of responsibility, the dispossession of children and giving them to LGBT families, the desecration of mosques and cemeteries, in addition to deportation to the original homelands.

Following the growth of these incidents, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, an intergovernmental body based in Saudi Arabia, called for an end to the phenomenon of Islamophobia and the rise of anti-Muslim sentiments in some European countries.

During a meeting held by the organization’s contact group on Muslims in Europe on September 19, 2022, it suggested that more efforts be made to support constructive dialogue in order to promote intercultural harmony, understanding, tolerance, and mutual respect.

The most Islamophobic incidents in Europe were recorded in France, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation said in a report last year.

On its part, the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), the only European anti-racism network, stated in a statement on February 2, 2023, that “despite the EU has one of the strongest human rights legal frameworks in the world, Islamophobia is still a dangerous phenomenon for the lives of Muslims.”

It noted, according to the Fundamental Rights Agency’s latest evidence on Islamophobia highlighted in the second EU survey on minorities and discrimination dating back to 2017, that “4 out of 10 Muslim respondents felt discriminated against in the five years preceding the survey because of their ethnic or immigrant background in one or more areas of daily life.”

 

Europe’s Priorities

In June 2022, 41 civil society groups declared that the EU had a problem with anti-Muslim hatred and that its institutions were doing little to help.

The EU and France opposed designating an international day to combat Islamophobia at the United Nations in March, activists said.

They said recent EU statements on this issue gave the impression that Islamophobia, whether structural or not, does not exist.

They added that the EU Commission had failed to appoint a new coordinator on anti-Muslim hatred since July 2021, in what appeared to be a pattern of behavior.

In March 2022, according to diplomatic sources, EU countries dropped references to the importance of a coordinator on anti-Muslim hatred after Poland said that if it were to appear in the text, it wanted a special coordinator on Christianophobia in Europe as well.

At the same time, French policies have paid more attention to combating anti-Semitism, and the EU Commission has had a coordinator in this role since 2015, which gives the impression of a hierarchy that worries the EU, the 41 civil groups said.

The EU is home to about 19 million Muslims, which make up 6 percent of its population, according to estimates by the ENAR, a Brussels-based NGO.

Surveys by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna indicate one in three Muslims had experienced discrimination in the past 12 months.