EIR 2018 GREECE pp.

Executive Summary This report examines Islamophobia in Greece in 2017 taking all local, national and international developments into consideration. The primary outcome of this year’s report is that Islamophobia continues to exist in different fields across Greece. Compared to last year’s report, Islamophobia in Greece did not seem to decline in 2017. It remains manifested primarily on the level of hate speech towards Muslims and to a lesser extent on the level of physical violence. Yet, attacks against a young Muslim immigrant’s house in Athens took place in 2017. Also, three masjids that had been functioning for years were closed down by the Greek police while demonstrations were also organised so as to prevent the education of refugee children at Greek public schools. Meanwhile, even if it is likely to open in 2018, public discussions and protests against the construction of an official house of prayer for Muslims in central Athens continued throughout 2017. Based on the report’s existing findings, Islamophobia is primarily manifested in Greek politics, printed and electronic media, and among some Orthodox Church officials, while it is relatively marginal in the education and justice system. Also, the Greek law is not robust enough in fighting anti-Muslim hatred inside Greek society. In general, the vast majority of perpetrator(s) of Islamophobic attacks remain unidentified; even those reproducing Islamophobic discourses, such as certain Metropolitans or politicians, are not penalised for their hate-motivated behaviour. With the exception of a few state and NGO initiatives, almost no progress has been achieved countering Islamophobia across Greece. For the purpose of addressing this vacuum, an observatory mechanism should immediately be formed that will monitor and record any type of Islamophobic incidents. A series of training seminars particularly for civil servants and journalists could be organised to develop their knowledge about Islam in Greece.

European Islamophobia Report 2022, 2023

Based on all the existing findings the situation regarding Islamophobia in Greece did not change significantly in 2022 compared to the previous years. Islamophobia is primarily found on the discursive level. Physical attacks with religious motivation such as targeting Islamic sacred places, e.g., mosques and cemeteries, or Muslim people, particularly immigrants or refugees, remain fewer compared to other European countries. Restrictions based on Covid-19 contributed to the lower number of hate-motivated physical attacks. However, violent attacks targeting Muslim individuals or Islamic sacred places were recorded in 2022. Some Muslims in Athens and Xanthi were physically beaten based on their religious and racial identity while the old, abandoned Islamic cemetery of a village located near Xanthi was completely demolished resulting in the loss of historical tombstones. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that after a long time, no anti-Muslim incident was recorded at schools attended by Muslim children, especially schools in urban areas. Politics, religion, media (both printed and online), and the internet continued to be the main four realms playing a crucial role in the reproduction of Islamophobia in the Greek public domain throughout 2022. As was the case for previous years, Islamophobia in Greece was expressed primarily by certain political parties and politicians of the right and extreme right, (self-proclaimed) neoliberals, some figures of the Orthodox Church of Greece, printed and electronic media, and journalists including their posts and comments on social media. The main issues that contributed to the reproduction of Islamophobia in 2022 were the public statement of an MP of the right-wing ruling party of Nea Dimocratia stigmatising Muslim Turks living in the Western Thrace region of the country; the demolition of the old and dilapidated Islamic cemetery of Petinos located near Xanthi; expressions both online and offline for the so-called Islamisation of Greece; and the debate over the state regulation prohibiting halal and kosher procedures of slaughtering animals without anaesthesia.

European Islamophobia Report 2020, 2021

The situation with regard to Islamophobia in Greece in 2020 did not change significantly compared to the previous years based on all the existing findings. Islamophobia is primarily found on the discursive level while physical attacks with religious motivation targeting mosques, cemeteries, Muslim migrants or refugees, which are actually difficult to record, remain fewer compared to other European countries. Politics, religion, media, and the Internet are the four primary realms that continued to play a significant role in the reproduction of Islamophobia in the public domain throughout 2020 without major differentiations from previous years Islamophobia in Greece was expressed by political parties and politicians of the right and extreme right, (self-proclaimed) neoliberals, figures of the Orthodox Church of Greece, printed and electronic media, and journalists including their posts on social media. The main issues that contributed to the reproduction of Islamophobia in 2020 were the so-called immigration/refugee problem, the conflictual situation which emerged at the Greek-Turkish borders in February-March, the negative attitudes toward refugees who reside in Athens and some of the Aegean islands, and the discussions and decisions on the transfer of migrants and refugees from the islands to the mainland. Another issue that gave spark to anti-Islamic reactions at various levels was the decision of the Turkish government to alter the use of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul from a museum to a mosque. This led to another wave of not only anti-Turkish views and attitudes, but of openly Islamophobic content. Finally, the opening of the ‘official’ Mosque of Athens in November a few days after the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, Nice (October 2020) and Vienna (November 2020) sparked a series of Islamophobic narratives.

IRCICA Journal: A Journal on Islamic History and Civilization, 2015

Since 9/11, there has been a growing academic literature about Islam across the world. Islamophobia is a relatively newer concept that needs further focus and analyses of researchers in various realms of social sciences. In the context of Europe, Islam per se is actually an old phenomenon. Until the early 1920s, the concept of peaceful coexistence and cohabitation of Islam with other religions had actually been promoted and strengthened particularly under the Ottoman administration all over the Balkan Peninsula for centuries. With the newly-drawn map of Europe, minorities and their rights came to the forefront under various mechanisms of the League of Nations. After the end of the Cold War epoch during which positive discrimination measures for minorities had been kept at the minimum level, religious freedoms of Muslims living in non-Muslim countries started to attract more attention of scholars seeking to find out how and to what extent Islam is incorporated within the majority societies. In this respect, this study takes Greece as a case study and analyzes to what extent Islam has been incorporated in Greece. While doing so, it dwells both on historical and new Muslim groups so as to find answers to two primary questions. To what extent does Greece respect rights of Muslims residing inside and outside of Western Thrace? What does Islamophobia mean in the context of Greece? Doing so, this study argues that since its establishment until this day, Greece has never allowed full enjoyment of Muslims’ freedoms across the country. It ratheraimed to limit their religious liberties, penetrate in their internal affairs via different ways and finally have the ultimate control over fundamental issues of Islam, which actually keeps triggering various interpretations of Islamophobia towards Muslims within the Greek society.

Journal of Strategic and Social Researches, 2021

There has been a growing academic literature about Islam in the West since 9/11 while Islam per se is actually an old phenomenon in the continent of Europe. Even if Muslims enjoy a variety of religious rights, Islamophobia is on rise all over Europe. In this respect, this study takes Greece as a case study and analyzes to what extent Islam has been incorporated in Greece. While doing so, it dwells both on historical and new Muslim groups so as to find answers to two primary questions. First, to what extent does Greece respect rights of Muslims residing in different parts of the country? Second, what does Islamophobia mean in the context of Greece? Doing so, this study argues that Greece has never allowed enjoyment of Muslims’ freedoms in full terms since its establishment as of this day. Rather, it has chosen to penetrate in their internal affairs via different ways, gradually limit their religious liberties and finally have the ultimate control over fundamental issues of Islam and Muslims living across the country. Moreover, Greece never applied for an establishment of an effective mechanism aiming to fight against anti-Muslim behavior depicted overtly or covertly by those belonging to different segments of the Greek society.

Religions, 2021

The largest part of the existing literature with regard to Islamophobia in Greece focuses primarily on the policies, activities and discourse of politicians and political groups of the extreme right, Orthodox Church figures, state authorities, the media and the Internet. The purpose of this article is to cast light on an aspect which is frequently neglected in the study of Islamophobia, i.e., the role of public intellectuals, through a series of questions: Where do public intellectuals in Greece stand with regard to Islamophobia? What are the main themes in their public discourse with regard to Islam and Muslims? What is the role they play in the reproduction of Islamophobic views? Having in mind the debates over the concepts of Islamo-Fascism, Islamo-leftism, Islamophilia and Islamophobia, this article builds on the literature about the role of intellectuals in society with a special focus on their views about Islam. Analysing the discourse of three public intellectuals, the main a...

Nationalities Papers, 2017

The article explores the “fear of Islam” through a specific series of political debates about Islam and the future of the Greek-Orthodox national identity. The analysis is based on the method of qualitative content analysis, which makes use of thematic categories and draws on the proceedings of the Greek parliament. The main questions the article will try to address are: How have Greek political parties reacted to public demand for the construction of a mosque? What have been the rhetorical tropes they use? How have they capitalized on current and old fears about Islam? What have been the implications of this discourse on state policies toward Islam? Have there been any differences in this discourse over time? The analysis highlights the role of historical interpretations of Greek national identity and contemporary problems related to new waves of migration due to Greece's place on the border with Turkey and with the broader Islamic world.

Abstract Main objectives Muslim pupils have been present in the educational systems of several Member States, such as Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom for some time. On the other hand, in Member States such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Ireland, and, to some extent, Denmark, the Muslim pupil population has only recently began growing, as immigration reached these countries much later. Due to the lack of educational statistics based on religion or ethnicity an assessment of the educational situation of Muslim pupils can be inferred mainly indirectly by looking at data referring to nationality or country of origin. These do not reveal the effects of a complex array of other factors contributing to school performance and educational attainment. The results of the 2000 and 2003 OECD PISA studies and the 2006 OECD report on migrant student performance show that non-native born pupils have much lower literacy scores than native pupils. Particularly in countries where the educational and socio-economic status of migrant families – many with Muslim background – is comparatively low, the performance gaps between students with and without migrant backgrounds tends to be larger. The 2006 study suggested that although students with migrant origins generally have strong learning dispositions, the performance differences between native and such students are significant, particularly in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Conceptual framework Islamophobia is a much used but little understood term. Although there is currently no legally agreed definition of Islamophobia, nor has social science developed a common definition, policy and action to combat it is undertaken within the broad concepts of racism and racial discrimination, which are universally accepted by Governments and international organizations. Methodology The sample consisted of 167 German-Arabs, 184 Arab-Turks and 205 British-Pakistanis. Most of the participants were young adults and the three groups did not differ in terms of age. There were more female participants among the German-Arabs and Arab-Turks than in the British-Pakistani sample. However, each sample could be described as relatively even in terms of gender distribution. While nearly half of the German-Arab participants were second generation immigrants, this applied to more than two thirds of the Arab-Turks and only to about one fourth of the British-Pakistanis. The British participants reported a better education than their German counterparts. Nearly two-thirds of the British-Pakistanis, but only 37.6% of the Arab-Turks and 23.6% of the German-Arabs held a university degree. German-Arabs and Arab-Turks reported mostly primary or secondary school as their highest education. Procedure Data was collected through online surveys between the period of January and February 2015. The surveys were translated from English into German and French using forward-back translation by bilingual teams. Participants were recruited through Muslim organizations, Muslim online newspapers, personal contacts and social networks. Before participating, respondents were informed about the study’s purpose, its confidentiality and the right to withdraw from participation at any given time. Muslims are inadequately captured in demographic statistics: the most conservative estimate based on official and, where they are not available, unofficial data is of a Muslim population of around thirteen million, around 3.5 per cent of the total population of the European Union, but with great variations between Member States. The demographic profile of the Muslim population is reportedly younger than the general population, indicating that policy interventions aimed at young people should have a strong impact. In Greece there are no positive measures to facilitate religious activities of minority groups at the workplace. The NGO Migrants’ Forum during the past years has asked for the recognition of Muslim festivities as grounds for legitimate absence from work. The provision of Islamic religious education varies across Europe, ranging from formal secular religious education – which is multi-faith in nature – to cross curriculum teaching of Islam, and separate Islamic teaching provided within or outside the state school context. Aspects of Islam are also taught within history curricula and, to a lesser extent, Islamic themes are also covered in some language and literature curricula. Results Muslims in the Member States of the European Union experience various levels of discrimination and marginalization in employment, education and housing, and are also the victims of negative stereotyping by majority populations and the media. In addition, they are vulnerable to manifestations of prejudice and hatred in the form of anything from verbal threats through to physical attacks on people and property. Discrimination against Muslims can be attributed to Islamophobic attitudes, as much as to racist and xenophobic resentment, as these elements are in many cases inextricably intertwined. Racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia become mutually reinforcing phenomena and hostility against Muslims should also be seen in the context of a more general climate of hostility towards migrants and minorities. The findings of this report had been gathered as information from all EU Member States with widely different histories of, and responses to, issues related to religious diversity, and very different traditions of anti-racism and anti-discrimination awareness and activity. Despite the variety in the nature of the data and information collected, it is evident that Muslims often experience various levels of discrimination and marginalization in employment, education and housing, and are also victims of negative stereotyping and prejudicial attitudes. It is difficult to attribute such discriminatory phenomena exclusively to religion, as Muslims are likely to become victims of multiple discrimination on the basis of their religion, race, national or ethnic origin, language, color, nationality, gender, and even legal status. This report finds that Muslims are vulnerable to discrimination and manifestations of Islamophobia in the form of anything from verbal threats through to physical attacks on people and property. The report presents research and statistical data – mostly through 'proxy' data, referring to nationality and ethnicity – showing that Muslims are often resident in areas with poor housing conditions, while their educational achievement generally falls below national averages and their unemployment rates tend to be higher than average. Muslims tend to be employed in jobs that require lower qualifications and as a group they are over-represented in low-paying sectors of the economy. Thus, many Muslims, particularly young people, face limited opportunities for social advancement and experience social exclusion and discrimination. Yet, given the paucity of available data, it is clear that the true extent and nature of discrimination and Islamophobic incidents against Muslims continues to be under-documented. Other areas with importance are:  Cultural events are an excellent way of introducing Islam to non-Muslims and can easily build upon any existent interest that might be identified. Such events are also easily transferable to other national settings where good ideas from one member state can be used elsewhere  Awareness programs are another means by which these same objectives can be achieved, where a range of organization can become involved. A number of excellent examples were identified, including in Ireland where the issue of Islamophobia is being incorporated into a national anti-racism programme, entitled "Know Racism"  Interaction and co-operation between the media and Muslim organizations must also be established. One recommendation might be to reflect the way in which the Dutch media are openly working in conjunction with both the Muslim community and interested researchers to assess the impact of Islamophobia in the media. The problem of social marginalization must be tackled and the practice of segregation must be addressed. Where such groups continue to retreat and become ever more introverted they no longer identify themselves with either a local, national or even European identity.