European Muslim Network

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“The Rules of the Game. Terrorism, Community and Human Rights” is a new report by Democratic Audit, a research organisation attached to the Human Rights Centre, at the University of Essex, for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. It is co-authored by Tufyal Choudhury, author of the EUMAP report Muslims in the UK: Policies for Engaged Citizens.

This report is largely focused on the response to what is now known as ‘home-grown’ terrorism…

It is our view that the government’s counter terrorism laws and the thrust of policy and rhetoric are actually doing more harm than good. The vast majority of people, non-Muslim and Muslim alike, want the police and security forces to apprehend the terrorists. However, mounting heavy police raids in pursuit of the ‘violent extremists bent on destruction’, hectoring Muslim parents to spy on their children, raising a ‘healthy debate’ about women who wear the veil, may play well with the Sun’s readers and the electorate at large, but it is all likely to drive a wedge between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities and to make it harder to win over the minority of those who feel sympathy with terrorists in Muslim communities. This model of counter terrorism is as dangerous as terrorism itself.

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Since the Iranian revolution of 1978-79, the issue of Islam and its supposed challenge to the West has become a matter of enduring international preoccupation, which politicians within western European states, as well as a number of Islamic leaders, have chosen to highlight.

Today, some 12.5 million Muslims live in Europe, compared with only 800 000 Muslims in 1950, and around 10 million in the US. Islam is no longer only a foreign policy matter, but has turned into a domestic issue that needs to be addressed at local, national and European levels. Muslim communities have grown rapidly in Europe in recent decades and Islam has emerged as the second religion in many European states.

However, recent international events, particularly the aftermath of 9/11, have created an unfavourable climate for many Muslims in Europe and have led to misperception and inaccurate stereotyping which risk making a “clash of civilizations” a reality.

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The “European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia” published the study “Muslims in the European Union, Discrimination and Islamophobia” in the end of the year 2006. The first part tries to put into context the data and information on manifestations of Islamophobia.

The second part presents country by country evidence of manifestations of Islamophobia examining data sources and data availability on the basis of a preliminary discussion on the use of the term ‘Islamophobia’.

The third part, which in many ways is the heart of this report, presents some key government and civil society initiatives targeting specifically Muslims.The report concludes with EUMC opinions addressed to European institutions, the Member States, civil society and the media.

The next meeting of european muslim network will take place from the 8.th to 10.th June 2007 in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark. Details will be published in due time.