This massive tome, now in its sixth annual edition, features 37 authors and covers 31 countries. Published in conjunction with seven "cooperation partners" (pointing to the establishment nature of this topic), it for some reason hides the blatant Turkish government role that the prior five editions proudly displayed.
 The seven organizations serving to hide the Turkish government's role in producing European Islamophobia Report 2020. |
The study leaves the gate asserting that in 2020, "the state of Islamophobia in Europe not only has not improved, but has worsened, if not reached a tipping point." Worse, "French and Austrian Muslims have been left in the hands of brutal state violence." Not only that, but the editors are grandiose about the importance of their topic for all of Europe: "Islamophobia not only directly devalues the lives of otherized people, but questions the humanity of a society that pretends to stand for the equality of all humans."
As one might expect, those 886 pages are replete with instances of horrible things done and said against Muslims. As one might equally expect, many of the instances are not so horrible.
The Swedish minister of education: "the government has decided to stop the establishment of new religious schools."- A Bulgarian prosecutor accused a wrestler with a Syrian father of participating in "terrorist activities abroad" based on photographs the then-16-year-old teenager posted on social media of himself in 2015-16 in Syria, in which he wore a military uniform and held weapons.
- The Austrian police raided suspected members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
- A former Finnish minister of the interior encouraged the current minister of the interior to pass tougher immigration laws.
- An Irish group complained about an athletic stadium being "saturated in the blood of terrified animals slaughtered without any form of sedation" (with no mention of the identity of the perpetrators).
Most amusingly, an example of Kosovo's "Islamophobic" media consists of ... an article published in The Washington Times. If these instances constitute "Islamophobia," it is no wonder that Muslims keep flocking in ever-larger numbers to Europe in the hope of starting their lives anew.
March 8, 2022 update: Martha Lee provides a masterly analysis of the European Islamophobia Report at "Turkey Lobbies to Outlaw Criticism of Islamism in Europe." She also notes more absurd examples of alleged "Islamophobia." Here's one: the study categorizes "Croatian member of parliament Marijana Petir as an Islamophobe because of her efforts to advocate for Christians suffering oppression in Muslim-majority countries."
Lee notes that criticism of Turkey's regime is also considered "Islamophobia":
Serbian unhappiness about Erdoğan 's decision to transform the Hagia Sophia from museum to mosque is said to have "anti-Turkish views and attitude" and "openly Islamophobic content."
In the chapter on Albania, ...Albanian criticism of the Turkish government's attempt to pass a law granting amnesty to child rapists if they marry their victim, is dismissed as "Turkophobia" and "anti-Turkish propaganda." Similar examples in which anti-AKP sentiment is dismissed as Islamophobia can be found in the chapters on Bulgaria and Greece.
