Racism in Europe
A study of social attitudes that was conducted at Harvard University from 2002–15 has mapped the countries in Europe with the highest incidents of racial bias towards black people, based on data from 288,076 white Europeans. It used the Implicit-association test. The weakest bias was found in Serbia and Slovenia, and the strongest bias was found in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Malta, Moldova, Bulgaria, Italy, and Portugal.. A more recent survey, released in 2018 by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency, shows the proportion of people of African descent who said they had experienced at least one assault they perceived as racist violence in the previous five years was highest in Finland, and Ireland and Austria among the 12 EU states surveyed, and lowest in the United Kingdom and Portugal. The highest proportion of those that had seen racial harassment in the previous year was in Finland, Luxembourg and Ireland, and the lowest in the U.K. and Malta.
Public opinion
The extent of negative attitudes towards Romani people varies across different parts of Europe.Bulgaria
On 9 October 1992, the Bulgarian president signed the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, signaling a new commitment to uphold minority rights.In 2013 one of the leaders of another nationalist party, VMRO, Angel Djambasky was put under investigation for calling the people to arm themselves against the immigrants.
At least 6 racist crimes are perpetrated between 3 and 13 November of every year.
112 intellectuals sign a petition to the attorney general not to register the party Ataka, which was rejected by the attorney general.
In October 2019, Bulgarian supporters shouted racist abuse towards English footballers during a match.
Discrimination against Roma remains widespread in Bulgaria.
Czech Republic
Roma make up 2–3% of population in the Czech Republic. According to Říčan, Roma make up more than 60% of Czech prisoners and about 20–30% earn their livelihood in illegal ways, such as procuring prostitution, trafficking and other property crimes. Roma are thus more than 20 times overrepresented in Czech prisons than their population share would suggest.The Romanis are at the centre of the agenda of far-right groups in the Czech Republic, which spread anti-Romanyism. Among highly publicized cases was the Vítkov arson attack of 2009, in which four right-wing extremists seriously injured a three-year-old Romani girl. The public responded by donating money as well as presents to the family, who were able to buy a new house from the donations, while the perpetrators were sentenced to 18 and 22 years in prison.
According to 2010 survey, 83% of Czechs consider Roma asocial and 45% of Czechs would like to expel them from the Czech Republic. A 2011 poll, which followed after a number of brutal attacks by Romani perpetrators against majority population victims, revealed that 44% of Czechs are afraid of Roma people. The majority of the Czech people do not want to have Romanis as neighbours seeing them as thieves and social parasites. In spite of long waiting time for a child adoption, Romani children from orphanages are almost never adopted by Czech couples. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 the jobs traditionally employing Romanis either disappeared or were taken over by immigrant workers.
In January 2010, Amnesty International launched a report titled Injustice Renamed: Discrimination in Education of Roma persists in the Czech Republic. According to the BBC, it was Amnesty's view that while cosmetic changes had been introduced by the authorities, little genuine improvement in addressing discrimination against Romani children has occurred over recent years.
A 2011 poll, which followed a number of brutal attacks by Roma perpetrators against white victims, reported that 44% of Czechs are afraid of Roma people. The majority of Czechs do not want Roma people as neighbours, viewing them as thieves and social parasites. Despite a long waiting list for adoptive parents, Romani children from orphanages are almost never adopted by Czech couples. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 jobs traditionally employing Romanis either disappeared or were taken over by immigrant workers.
The 2019 Pew Research poll poll found that 66% of Czechs held unfavorable views of Roma.
Denmark
YouGov ranks Denmark as the most racist country in northern Europe.In a 2019 study based on Nationalist, anti-Immigrant and anti-religious Minority sentiment scores, Denmark is 11th most racist in Western Europe based on median score, but has the third most people with scores above 5.
The study also showed
29% are intolerant of black people, Jews, Muslims, Romas. 72% rated Romas as "totally negative" while 45% had negative feelings towards Muslims. Adoptees with foreign background are often racially abused.
A Jew named Dan Uzan was killed by a Muslim in front of a synagogue as part of the 2015 Copenhagen shootings. His funeral was attended by the prime minister and several members of parliament and he was named Dane of the year, because he prevented additional killings by the terrorist at the Jewish institution, which has since been kept under constant surveillance by Danish police in collaboration with Danish military.
Young non-ethnic Danes have claimed that they felt that some police officers have acted in a racist manner.
Estonia
In the mid-2010s, NATO soldiers from the U.S. stationed in Estonia as part of Enhanced Forward Presence were subject to racist attacks by local civilians, resulting in condemnations from the Estonian Air Force's commander,, and the U.S. embassy's charge d'affaires. Some Estonians, particularly from the Conservative People's Party, voiced their displeasure at the condemnations.The Conservative People's Party of Estonia has been described by critics as xenophobic and racist.
Finland
Reports say that racial hate crime is a recent phenomenon, and that they are on the rise. The numbers of reported hate crimes in 2003 and 2004 were 522 and 558, respectively. In 2009, they had increased to over 1 000. Racial hate crimes have fluctuated from 858 to 641 and the typical suspect have been a Finnish-born young man. However, over 60% of the targets were reported to have been Finland-born, although those with foreign-born parents were counted as well. The most targeted immigrants in 2004 were reported to be of Somali, Kurdish, Russian, Iraqi and Iranian origin. One-third of the hate crimes were reportedly aimed at the Kale, and only one in six were members of the native population.In European Social Surveys since 2002, Finns have proved to be least racist just after Swedes. Earlier Finnish scientific data reveals that attitudes had been improving continuously for a long time. Professor of Social Policy and responsible of Finnish ESS, Heikki Ervasti, denies a common thought of increased negative attitudes against immigrants.
A poll made in late 2011 revealed that the majority of the Finns viewed Finland as a racist country. Two thirds considered the country to be fairly racist, 12% recognised a moderate amount of racism, and 2% admitted to be very racist; 35% agreed partly or wholly to the statement "Islam is a threat to Western values and democracy", and 29% agreed more or less to that "people belonging to certain races simply are not suited to live in a modern society". One in five thought "it needs to be recognised as a fact that some nations are more intelligent than others", and 11% agreed partly or completely to "people whose appearance and culture differ much from those of the Finns are unpredictable and frightening".
In a 2018 study conducted in 12 EU member states, Finland tops the chart with the most perceived racism, with 62% of those surveyed having experienced racially motivated harassment.
HSL Case
According to a report from Iltalehti, an alleged incident of racism and police brutality occurred on the evening of 4 July 2020 at the Central Railway Station of Helsinki Metro. The incident centers on two youths, one white male and one black male, who were apprehended together for not having a valid ticket. According to eyewitness accounts and unverified footage of the incident that was circulating on social media, the white youth was calmly spoken to by the police before being allowed to leave, however, the black teenager was allegedly thrown down onto the floor by security staff and placed in handcuffs. One security staff member was allegedly seen pressing his knee down on the teenager's neck, at which point the victim could be seen yelling out "I can't breathe" in English, which has clearly evoked images on social media in the case of George Floyd in the United States.France
Jewish leaders perceive an intensifying anti-Semitism in France, mainly among Muslims of Arab or Berber heritage.In 1998 the Council of Europe's European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance made a report stating concern about racist activities in France and accused the French authorities of not doing enough to combat this. The report and other groups have expressed concern about organizations like Front National. In a recent Pew Survey, 47% of the French deem immigration from Central and Eastern Europe to be a very bad thing. Likewise, the majority of French respondents revealed negative views on the immigration of Muslims from Africa and Middle East. A small minority showed signs of anti-Semitism. Roughly 11% had an unfavorable view of Jews and 8% felt that US policy was most influenced by the Jews.
Germany
Greece
emerged as a fringe movement when it was founded in the early 1980s and since then, it has evolved into a far-right group within Greece. Members of Golden Dawn have been accused of carrying out acts of violence as well as hate crimes against immigrants, political opponents, homosexuals and ethnic minorities. In September 2019, Golden Dawn's headquarters in Athens, were closed and dissolved, only two months after the party's defeat in the July general elections.In a 2016 Pew Research study, Greeks were found to be most intolerant nationality in Europe of ethnic diversity of all the peoples surveyed, with Europe in general expressing negative sentiment towards ethnic diversity.
Hungary
An EU report found that legal policies that should protect people from racism and xenophobia were "not implemented effectively", and it also found that Hungarian public officials denied the fact that racism and discrimination were a problem in their country, despite evidence to the contrary. It noted that such factors contributed to the increase in extremist ideologies in Hungarian politics and media. The Council of Europe has also criticized Hungary in a new report, condemning xenophobia and violence against migrants and minorities.2013 FRA online survey shows a middle to high level of anti-Semitism in Hungary, compared to other European countries. The banned Hungarian Guard and some Jobbik politicians are sometimes described as xenophobic and racist.
As in other European countries, the Romani people faced disadvantages, including unequal treatment, discrimination, segregation and harassment. Negative stereotypes are often linked to the high level of unemployment among Romani people and their reliance on state benefits. In 2008 and 2009 nine attacks took place against Romani in Hungary, resulting in six deaths and multiple injuries. According to the Hungarian curia, these murders were motivated by anti-Romani sentiment and sentenced the perpetrators to life imprisonment.
Ireland
During the second world war, although Ireland was officially neutral, Prime Minister Éamon de Valera was accused of sympathizing with and supporting the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in Germany. Following the death of Hitler in 1945 de Valera was one of many who signed a book of condolence and offered sympathies to the German Minister at the German Embassy in Dublin. This led to the belief among Allied leaders such as Churchill that de Valera and the Irish in general were supportive of the Nazi regime. The substantial influx of Nazi war criminals to Ireland following the war and their acceptance into society both officially by the Government of Ireland and by the general public also lead to claims Ireland was tolerant if not supportive of the Nazi regime. However, one must also consider that Germany had supplied guns to the Irish war of independence 20 years earlier, and so Irish sympathies to the Germans rather than their long-standing oppressors the British can easily be accounted for in this way, rather than due to anti-semitism. Thus, historically, the Jewish community in Ireland has enjoyed support not enjoyed elsewhere in Europe..In mid-twentieth century Ireland there was traditionally very little immigration in general to the Republic of Ireland, and hence little racial diversity, though in recent decades growing prosperity in the country attracted increasing numbers of immigrants, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, China and Sub-Saharan Africa. Also the absence of colonialist baggage has meant that foreign people are not drawn to Ireland by "mother country" factors that have affected other European countries. Descendants of Irish people who emigrated in the past also started moving back to the country. Most immigrants have settled in Dublin and the other cities. Though these developments have been somewhat tolerated by most, there has been a steady rise in racist attitudes among some sections of society. A 2001 survey found that 51% of Irish people surveyed considered the country inherently racist and 60% of those in the 25 to 34 age-group considered "racism" to be an Irish trait. In 2005, Minister of State for Overseas Development, Conor Lenihan famously advised Socialist politician Joe Higgins to "stick with the kebabs" – referring to his campaigning on behalf of Turkish contract workers who had been paid less than the statutory minimum wage. The Minister later retracted his remarks and apologized. A 2008 EU-MIDIS survey of attitudes to minorities in the 27 EU States found that Ireland had the most racist attitudes to Afro-Europeans in the entire EU.
While most racist abuse in Ireland is verbal, violent hate crimes have occurred. In 2000, a white man was stabbed and seriously injured when defending his Jamaican-born wife from racist abuse by a group of adult men. In 2002, a Chinese man Zhao Liu Tao was murdered in Dublin in what was described as the Republic of Ireland's first racially motivated murder. Later that year Leong Ly Min, a Vietnamese man who had lived in Dublin since 1979, was mortally wounded by two assailants who had been racially abusing him. In February 2008, two Polish mechanics, Paweł Kalita and Mariusz Szwajkos were attacked by a group of Dublin youths and died outside their home after each being stabbed in the head with a screwdriver. In 2010, 15-year-old schoolboy Toyosi Shittabey, born in Nigeria but brought up in Dublin, was killed. The only man to stand trial for the murder was acquitted on the direction of the trial Judge.
The Shelta or Irish Travellers, a nomadic ethnic group once speaking their own language, have also experienced persecution in past and modern times throughout Ireland.
Recently, the Mayor of Naas Darren Scully was forced to resign on 22 November 2011 over comments on live radio about the "aggressive attitude" of "black Africans".
Ireland has some of the highest incidents of racist violence and harassment against against people of African descent according to the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency. It was joint second highest for those who said they had experienced at least one assault they perceived as racist violence in the previous five years, after Finland and alongside Austria, and has the third highest proportion of those that had seen racial harassment in the previous year.
The country is one of only two in the European Union without specific race hate laws.
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Netherlands
In the early 2012 the Dutch right-wing Party for Freedom established an anti-Slavic and anti-Romani website, where native Dutch people could air their frustration about losing their job because of cheaper workers from Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and other non-Germanic Central and Eastern European countries. This led to commentaries involving hate speech and other racial prejudice mainly against Poles and Roma, but also aimed at other Central and Eastern European ethnic groups.The impact of systemic racism in the Netherlands has been demonstrated multiple times, especially against Dutch people with a Turkish, Moroccan or Caribbean background. For example, researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University conducted between 2016 and 2018 a research where they sent 4,200 job application letters to companies. The fictional applicants were between 23 and 25 years old, with four years of work experience who applied for real vacancies. All the applicants had a Dutch nationality, but the names and mother tongue of the applicants were adjusted. The conclusion was that Dutch people had the most chances of being invited for a job interview. The candidates with a Western immigrant background had 20% less chance of being invited. And the candidates who had a non-Western immigrant background faced the biggest discrimination with 40% of the applicants not being invited to a job interview. Especially applicants with a Turkish, Moroccan or Antillean background are discriminated against. A side note from the research was that during economic downturns there was an increased amount of discrimination. And applicants who were discriminated against with an improved CV didn't have a higher chance of being invited either.
Blackface portrayals of "Zwarte Piet" in the Netherlands have been condemned as being racist in recent years. The police have also been multiple times accused of jeopardizing the safety of anti-Zwarte Piet protest groups during violent attacks by pro-Zwarte Piet protest groups. According to lawyer Jelle Klaas, the pro-Pete movement is starting to become more radicalized. And according to terrorism expert Teun Van Dongen, violence by the pro-Pete movement is becoming normalized. Because white supremacist groups like Pegida and football hooligans have joined the pro-Pete movement. Geert Wilders, leader of far-right populist party the PVV, was also accused of indirectly supporting the violence behavior of the pro-Pete movement by tweeting, "There is only 1 #blackpete and he/she is BLACK!" after a violent attack by the pro-Pete movement against the anti-Pete movement.
It’s important to note that the blackface in the Black Pete tradition has diminishing in the last year, at the official celebrations of the holiday the actors playing the role of Black Pete now have their faces covered in soot marks instead of blackface.
Poland
Far-right marches have gathered 60 000 participants chanting "Poland for Poles" as well as anti-semitic slogans. Poland also have a major problem with racist football hooligans.The number of racist incidents in Poland is increasing. In 2013 there were more than 800 racially motivated crimes and in 2016 it had increased to over 1600. Poland tops the list of countries with most attacks on Indian students with 9 of 21 incidents.
Portugal
Romania
Racism in Romania is directed against various minority groups, prominently Romani people.Russia
The term "pogrom" became commonly used in English after a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots swept through south-western Czarist Russia in 1881-1884. A much bloodier wave of pogroms broke out in 1903–1906, leaving an estimated 2,000 Jews dead. By the beginning of the 20th century, most European Jews lived in the so-called Pale of Settlement, the Western frontier of the Russian Empire consisting generally of the modern-day countries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and neighboring regions. Many pogroms accompanied the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War, an estimated 70,000 to 250,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities throughout the former Russian Empire; the number of Jewish orphans exceeded 300,000.In the 2000s, neo-Nazi groups inside Russia had risen to include as many as tens of thousands of people. Racism against both the Russian citizens and non-Russian citizens of Africans, Central Asians, East Asians and Europeans is a significant problem.
Since 2008, the number of hate crimes in Russia declined significantly.
The Russian Orthodox Church "believes it is vital for Russia to pursue anti-extremist campaign and develop a sustainable strategy." As a result, it has called for immigrants to be given jobs and the opportunity to learn more about Russian culture. In addition, it has called for skinheads to refocus their mission to legally preventing crime and immoral behavior.
Slovenia
have become the main target of Slovenian racists in the 21st century as the population is otherwise extremely homogeneous.Spain
are viewed with less sympathy than other groups.Racist abuse aimed at black footballers has been reported at Spanish football league matches in recent years. This has led to protests and UEFA fines against clubs whose supporters continue the abuse. Several players in the Spanish league including Barcelona striker Samuel Eto'o and Espanyol goalkeeper Carlos Kameni have suffered and spoken out against the abuse. In 2006, Real Zaragoza player Ewerthon stated: "the Spanish Federation have to start taking proper measures and we as Afro-European players also have to act."
Sweden
In 1922 Sweden established the Statens institut för rasbiologi, or state institute for race biology. The institute recommended the sterilization by force of the mentally ill, physically disabled, homosexuals and ethnic minorities, which was allowed by Swedish law until 1975.According to the report Racism and Xenophobia in Sweden by the Board of Integration, Muslims are exposed to the most religious harassment in Sweden. Almost 40% of the interviewed said they had witnessed verbal abuse directed at Muslims. European Network Against Racism in Sweden claims that in today's Sweden there exists a clear ethnic hierarchy when ethnic Swedes are at the top and non-European immigrants are at the bottom.
Sveriges Radio reported that the punishments for driving under the influence of alcohol tended to be harsher for immigrants than for Swedes; while over 50% of immigrants were sent to jail for driving under the effect of alcohol, only less than 30% of ethnic Swedes were sent to jail with the same level of alcohol found in blood. There has been evidence that the Swedish police used "Neger Niggersson" as a nickname for a criminal in a police training; this was published in Swedish media. Lately however, many incidents of racial attitudes and discrimination of the Swedish police have led for the first time to the control of racial attitudes of police students under police education A recent research done by the Swedish Confederation for Professional Employees found that people with foreign background have much lower chances of finding a job that is appropriate for their education, even when they have grown up in Sweden and got their education in Swedish institutes.
In 2007, there were a total of 3,536 hate crimes reported to the police, including 118 cases of anti-Semitic agitation. Racism in Sweden is reported to appear within Swedish health-care services as well. A nurse at a Stockholm suburb hospital lost his job after complaining on racial attitudes of the hospital staff to patients with immigrant background. Staff was cited saying "go back to Arabia", "the patient is screaming because it's in his culture."
Swedish social services have reported on racism in Swedish hospitals as well. A study of statistics Sweden reveals that segregation is widespread for Swedish immigrants when there are large differences in the fields of education, housing, employment and politics between immigrants and ethnic Swedes. Sweden has been criticized by the UN human rights council for an increasing number of hate crimes which seldom resulted in criminal charges, when more hate crimes are Islamophobic, and homophobic, with an increasing amount of racist propaganda appearing on the internet and in Sweden's schools, for failing to provide adequate health care and education to immigrants, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants and the ongoing discrimination of the Roma and Sami minorities in Sweden.
A study was conducted in 2011 about the Swedes attitudes to mixed marriages. The conclusion was that the views in general were favorable, but that there was a strong hierarchy based on which groups to live with. Swedes primarily preferred relationships with Scandinavians, Western Europeans and Southern Europeans, and then Eastern Europeans, Central Europeans and Latin Americans. At the bottom were South and East Asians, Africans, and Middle Eastern people. Older individuals and women, as well as people with less education and people who were brought up outside of Malmö, were generally more prone to having negative attitudes. Most were able to accept family members and friends living in mixed relationships, even if they did not want to do it themselves.
Swedish national television has reported on a new research done in Sweden which identifies that job seekers with a Swedish name have 50% higher chances to be called for an interview than job seekers with middle-eastern names. The research enlightens that there is not much difference between foreign-born job seekers and job seekers born in Sweden if both don't have a Swedish name; this indicates that ethnic discrimination is the main cause of the variations.
In 2012, Swedish Minister for Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth was labelled a racist by The Afro-Swedish Society because she cut up a cake in the shape of a naked African woman in public. Ironically, the cake was made by an Afro-Swedish artist.
In 2015, a Swedish man motivated by racism attacked people at a school in Trollhättan with a sword, killing two.
Switzerland
The Swiss "Confederation Commission Against Racism" which is part of the Swiss "Federal Department of Home Affairs" published a 2004 report, Black People in Switzerland: A Life between Integration and Discrimination . According to this report, discrimination based on skin colour in Switzerland is not exceptional, and affects immigrants decades after their immigration.Swiss People's Party claims that Swiss communities have a democratic right to decide who can or cannot be Swiss. In addition, the report said "Official statements and political campaigns that present immigrants from the EU in a favourable light and immigrants from elsewhere in a bad light must stop", according to the Swiss Federal Statistics Office in 2006, 85.5% of the foreign residents in Switzerland are European. The United Nations special rapporteur on racism, Doudou Diène, has observed that Switzerland suffers from racism, discrimination and xenophobia. The UN envoy explained that although the Swiss authorities recognised the existence of racism and xenophobia, they did not view the problem as being serious. Diène pointed out that representatives of minority communities said they experienced serious racism and discrimination, notably for access to public services, employment and lodging.
Slovakia
According to the last census from 2011, Roma make up 2.0% of the population in Slovakia.Three Slovakian Romani women have come before the European Court of Human Rights on grounds of having been forcefully sterilised in Slovakian hospitals. The sterilisations were performed by tubal ligation after the women gave birth by Caesarean section. The court awarded two of the women costs and damages while the third case was dismissed because of the woman's death. A report by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Centre for Civil and Human Rights has compiled more than 100 cases of Roma women in Slovakia who have been sterilised without their informed consent.
Roma are the victims of ethnically driven violence and crime in Slovakia. According to monitoring and reports provided by the European Roma Rights Center in 2013, racist violence, evictions, threats, and more subtle forms of discrimination have increased over the past two years in Slovakia. The ERRC considers the situation in Slovakia to be one of the worst in Europe, as of 2013.
Roma people suffer serious discrimination in Slovakia. Roma children are segregated in school and do not receive the level of education as other Slovakian children. Some are sent to schools for children with mild mental disabilities. As a result, their attainment level is far below average. Amnesty International’s report "Unfulfilled promises: Failing to end segregation of Roma pupils in Slovakia" describes the failure of the Slovak authorities to end the discrimination of Roma children on the grounds of their ethnicity in education. According to a 2012 United Nations Development Programme survey, around 43 per cent of Roma in mainstream schools attended ethnically segregated classes.
Roma people receive new housing from municipalities and regional administrations for free every year, however people complain that some of them end up being destroyed by Roma people themselves. After the destruction, in some cases it has happened that the residents receive new housing, without being criminally prosecuted for destroying state property.
The 2019 Pew Research poll found that 76% of Slovaks held unfavorable views of Roma.