Terror attacks spark rise in abuse of Muslims in Europe

By Michael Thurston

VIENNA, Oct 4 (AFP) - Attacks on Muslims have increased in a number of EU countries since last month's terror assaults in the United States, notably in Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden, the EU's racism watchdog said Thursday.

The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) also cited physical abuse of Muslims in Britain and urged politicians to counter the trend sparked by US accusations that Islamic extremists were behind the September 11 terror attacks.

"We ask political leaders to continue in their efforts to raise awareness among the public that the terrorists cannot be equated with a particular religious community," said EUMC chairman Bob Purkiss.

In a report detailing abuse against Islamic communities in each EU state, the Vienna-based EUMC noted both verbal and physical attacks.

"In almost all countries verbal insults towards Muslims have been reported in the days after the attack," it said, adding that abuse of Muslim schoolchildren by their schoolmates was "frequent."

EUMC Director Beate Winkler said the report showed that racial or religious prejudice had become highly sensitive in the wake of the terror attacks in the United States.

"The whole situation is extremely sensitive and it can go in a negative way, a very negative direction," she told AFP.

The EUMC reported Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden as the countries where abuse of Muslims had increased the most overall.

Physical attacks were reported on mosques in The Hague and Vlissingen and an Islamic school was set on fire in the Dutch town of Nijmegen, while in the Swedish city of Gothenburg an Iranian-born taxi driver was beaten up by attackers who called him a "bloody terrorist," said the 15-page report.

In one assault in Britain, a 28-year-old Afghan minicab driver was "seriously assaulted and left paralyzed from the neck down," in an incident linked by police to the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

In general the racism watchdog praised politicians' stance in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

"Politicians have quickly acted to counteract possible negative effects on the Islamic community, emphasizing that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not support terrorism," it said.

But, without naming specific countries, it noted: "In some countries some political parties (also in the government) have taken an anti-Islamic stance and tried to identify terrorism with the Islamic community."

Winkler declined to be drawn on which countries the accusation might be referring to.

But a source familiar with the report listed Italy, France, Sweden and Austria as countries where some politicians were causing concern, citing notably Austria's far-right Freedom Party strongman Joerg Haider.

Said Winkler: "Racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism will decrease if there is a clear political message that this is not accepted."

Also Thursday the London-based human rights group Amnesty International warned that the shock and outrage following the terrorist strikes must not be used to justify measures which may lead to further human rights abuses.

The organisation highlighted "the first worrying indications that the fight against terrorism may be opportunistically used to clamp down on civil liberties and human rights".

"In Europe and elsewhere, governments are rushing to the top of their political agendas laws that threaten to curb civil liberties and possibly reduce safeguards against abuses of human rights," it said.