Islamophobia on the rise – UN report

Islamophobia on the rise – UN report

Islamophobia has been on the rise since the 9/11 attacks in the United States with Muslims living in Europe facing growing difficulties in carrying out their religious practices and establishing mosques, said a UN expert in racism.

"In the current context, Islamaphobia constitutes the most serious form of religious defamation," Doudou Diene, UN special rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council on September 14, reported Reuters.

"Political parties with open anti-Islamic platforms have joined governmental coalitions in several countries and started to put in place their political agendas," he said.

"In sum, Islamophobia is in the process of permeating all facets of social life."

He said recent lampooning cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) were an evidence on the rising Islamophobia in the West.

He said right-wing groups and the media are trying to equate Islam with violence and terrorism.

Some were seeking to "silence religious practices by banning the construction of mosques", he said.

Though Islam is the continent's second religion, Muslims across Europe are facing venomous campaigns against building stately mosques.

In Switzerland, the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC) has launched a campaign to ban the construction of minarets in the country.

A similar move is also underway in the German city of Cologne.

Some European parties were resorting to the language of fear and exclusion, scapegoating and targeting ethnic or religious minorities in general, and immigrants and refugees in particular, said Diene.

"We see the initiatives and activities of many groups and organisations which are working hard to bring about a war of civilisations."

A recent report by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia said that Muslim minorities in Europe face deep-seated discrimination in jobs, education and housing in addition to myriad barriers that give rise to feelings of hopelessness and exclusion.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said the rising Islamophobia in the West was alarming.

"Recent acts of defamation in the shape of blasphemous sketches in Sweden and posters in Switzerland reinforce this conclusion," said Pakistan's envoy Masood Khan, speaking on behalf of the OIC

"Such blasphemy should not be encouraged in the name of freedom of expression," accusing the media of fueling fears of Muslims.

"The international media continues to use the misguided actions of a small extremist minority as an excuse to malign the entire Muslim world, as well as the religion of Islam," he said.

Spain will host a conference early October to discuss discrimination and intolerance toward Muslims.

The conference, held under the aegis of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, will investigate the "roots of intolerance towards Muslims, the consequences and the role of the media", said the Spanish Foreign Ministry in a statement.

Diene, who was appointed as an independent UN expert in 2002, was presenting a report on defamation of religions to the 47-member council.

The report also includes sections on anti-Semitism and other forms of religious or racial persecution around the world.

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