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Promoting Respect and Diversity Combating Intolerance and Hate Contribution to the Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights

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Promoting Respect and Diversity Combating Intolerance and Hate Contribution to the Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights Promoting respect and diversity Combating intolerance and hate Contribution to the Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights The European Union continues to witness challenges to its core principles and values, through violence motivated by hate and intolerance, through terrorist attacks against soft targets such as the media and cultural or religious facilities, and through the discrimination and exclusion of those regarded as ‘different’ because of what they believe in or where they come from. Regardless of ethnic origin, religion or belief, everyone living in the Union has a fundamental right to be treated equally, to be respected and to be protected from violence. This contribution paper provides evidence of the fact that such respect is lacking, and suggests ways in which governments can ensure they fulfil their duty to safeguard this right for everyone living in the EU. Key facts To improve the situation, measures should be taken to: Evidence collected by FRA shows that o Improve victims’ access to justice, including racism, xenophobia and related steps to facilitate reporting of hate crime to intolerance are widespread, despite the police and discrimination to equality measures taken by government and bodies civil society across the EU o Improve hate crime recording by law The social and political climate is enforcement and prosecution by criminal growing ever more tolerant of justice extremist, racist and xenophobic o Ensure that relevant penalties and sanctions agendas that exploit fears about youth are effective, proportionate and dissuasive unemployment and security in the face o Develop targeted media campaigns and of terrorism and other geopolitical training courses about the principles of challenges equality and non-discrimination as well as Overall, this situation has a negative combating racism and prejudice in daily life impact on social cohesion, as well as on in order to empower a range of key people respect for fundamental rights involved, such as justice officials, law Political action is necessary to ensure enforcement, social partners and educators full implementation of the EU’s existing o Support efforts to welcome the ethnic, legal framework in order to afford linguistic, cultural and religious diversity in effective protection from discrimination our societies and make use of it to bolster and hate social cohesion and growth. 1 Contribution to the Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights Discrimination and hate and nature of these phenomena in a given Member State. crime: the evidence Filling the data gap: FRA surveys The paucity of official data The core task of the Agency is to collect and The Agency has all too often pointed to the analyse data on fundamental rights issues. variation and resulting lack of comparability In order to address the absence of between statistics on hate crime and comparable data on discrimination and hate discrimination in the EU. This is largely due crime, the Agency carried out the first ever to historical experience in some Member EU-wide survey (the ‘European Union States, which now hesitate to collect data Minorities and Discrimination Survey’ or EU- disaggregated by ethnic origin or religious MIDIS) of migrants and minorities to belief. investigate their experiences of discrimi- nation and criminal victimisation. The survey Another factor that influences the extent of a random sample of 23,500 migrants and and detail of available data is the minorities in 2008 was conducted just as EU significance attached by Member States to criminal law on combating certain types of empirical data collection as a tool to inform hate crime was introduced in the form of the policy development. This means that some 2008 Council Framework Decision on racism Member States, such as the United Kingdom, and xenophobia. the Netherlands or Germany, report much higher figures on ethnic discrimination and The survey, which is in the course of being ‘racist’ crime, simply because their laws and repeated in order to analyse trends over data collection mechanisms allow for time, provides evidence of incidents of broader categories of data. Other Member discrimination, as well as crimes such as States, such as Greece or Portugal, either assault, threat or serious harassment. don’t publish such data on a regular basis, or Respondents, many of whom were Muslims, issue limited data that represents only a noted the use of racially or religiously handful of cases. offensive language used against them. The availability of data is also of course Overall, 37% of migrants and minorities influenced by victims’ willingness to report surveyed across the EU said they had incidents of discrimination and hate crime to personally experienced discrimination in the authorities; this, in turn, will be limited if the 12 months preceding the survey, the reporting system is not ‘user friendly’, while 12% had personally experienced recognising the needs and rights of victims, a racist crime. However, 80% of these particularly those from especially vulnerable did not report the incident to the police. groups. On the other hand, the willingness The highest levels of discrimination of individuals to come forward and report were reported by Roma, with one in also depends on the capacity of public two respondents saying they had been authorities, in particular law enforcement, to discriminated against in the last 12 record and deal with such incidents months. High levels of discrimination efficiently. Only in this way is it possible to were also noted by Sub-Saharan provide effective access both to victim Africans (41%) and North Africans support and to redress mechanisms. (36%). Official figures on discrimination and hate On average, 18% of all Sub-Saharan crime therefore often tell us more about the African and 18% of all Roma nature of data collection mechanisms, and respondents indicated that they had the use of data for policy development and experienced at least one ‘in-person action to tackle discrimination and hate crime’ (assault, threat, or serious crime, than they do about the true extent 2 harassment) in the last 12 months that and hate crime of Jewish people. While the they considered to be ‘racially survey showed that Jewish people are motivated. significantly affected by hate crime and discrimination, again the majority of victims Of the respondents who identified did not report to the authorities. themselves as Muslims (originating from North and Sub-Saharan Africa, Turkey, Iraq, In the 12 months preceding the survey, or ex-Yugoslavia and stating that religion 21% of respondents had experienced played a ‘very important’ or ‘fairly physical attacks, serious harassment or important’ role in their lives), 11% had verbal insults motivated by fallen victim of racially motivated ‘in-person antisemitism. crime’ at least once in the 12 months A majority of victims of harassment preceding the survey. Of those who said (76%), of physical violence or threats they had been victims of in-person crime, (64%), or of personal property between 53% and 98%, did not report their vandalism (53%) did not report the experience to the police, many saying there most serious incident in the past five would have been no point as in their opinion years to the police or any other the police would not have been able to do organisation. anything. Approximately a third of respondents Trust in law enforcement is influenced by were worried about becoming a victim methods of policing. EU-MIDIS showed that of physical attack, while some 40% on average, 1 in 4 Muslim respondents had were concerned that family members been stopped by the police in the previous may become the victim of a physical 12 months, and 40% of these believed that attack. this was specifically because of their immigrant or minority status. On average, Nonetheless, almost two-thirds of the 37% of Muslim respondents stopped by respondents who had experienced customs or border control in the previous 12 physical violence or threats of violence months believed the checks had taken place did not report the most serious incident specifically because of their immigrant or to the police or any other organisation. minority background. This compared with The majority of respondents who did 19% of non-Muslim minority respondents not report incidents of hate crime or surveyed in EU-MIDIS. discrimination to the police or any other In sum, the findings of EU-MIDIS indicated a organisations said this was because clear need to strengthen protection against “nothing would happen or change” by discrimination and hate crime, and to doing so. improve access to justice and more comprehensive victim support. At the same The question of perpetrators time, the findings also demonstrated a Surveys provide robust information on profound lack of trust in law enforcement perceptions and experiences of victims. that necessitate an examination of the However, it is more difficult to acquire such impact of law enforcement methods on information on perpetrators. The identity of relations with ethnic minority groups. In those who discriminate on grounds of ethnic addition, the findings point to an urgent origin is available, if the case is taken up by need to improve the reporting and recording courts and/or equality bodies, but their of incidents of hate crime and characteristics are neither systematically discrimination. collected nor analysed. FRA is currently These results were largely reflected in the addressing this gap through the second EU- findings of a survey conducted by FRA in MIDIS survey, which includes questions on 2012 on the experiences of discrimination offenders. 3 Contribution to the Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights In the case of hate crime, official data rarely The question of perpetrators is politically include detailed information on perpetrators sensitive, but it is nevertheless essential in (with the exception of aggregate data order to formulate effective responses. In collected by some Member States). this respect, the available evidence However, survey respondents can provide suggests that community relations can information based on their perception of benefit from local level initiatives to bring perpetrator characteristics.
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