European Action Day Against Islamophobia 2023

The European Action Day Against Islamophobia (EADAI) is an annual event on the 21st of September and marks a major opportunity to raise awareness on the issue of anti-Muslim hatred. It was established by the advocacy and campaigning of FEMYSO together with other organizations and institutions. EADAI creates the opportunity to share facts, lived experiences, and tools to address Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred in Europe. To mark this day, FEMYSO organized a conference hosted at the European Parliament, Brussels, to bring together young Muslims from across the continent with stakeholders at an EU institutional level. In 2023, EADAI is more critical than ever as we witness the rise in Islamophobia in most European countries and its normalization by governing institutions.

The conference hosted approximately 40 young Muslim youth leaders from across Europe and featured two panels with Q&A sessions after each. FEMYSO’s Vice-President Nadia El Faroukhi opened the Conference and highlighted the importance of the event in the current political landscape. Her words were followed by a keynote speech by the honourable MEP Brando Benifei who has always been an incredible ally for the cause of Muslim youth.

The first panel was titled ‘Islamophobia in 2023: Shrinking of the civic space, and top-down vs. bottom-up challenges’ and was chaired by James Kanter, political commentator and host of the podcast EUScreams. Attendees heard from academics, journalists, and human rights advocates on the current European context and anti-Muslim hatred. The panelists were Shada Islam, political commentator and analyst, Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s EU Office, and Farid Hafez, co-editor of the annual European Islamophobia Report). After the session, several participants asked pertinent questions and there were contacts exchanged between speakers and attendees to continue the conversations beyond the event.

The second panel’s title was forward-looking, and covered “Safe-guarding future-policies, 2024 EP Elections and Muslim European Voters”. Areeq Chowdhury, Head of Policy at the Royal Society and Labour Party Councillor from the UK, shared his expertise and answered questions on the issue of discrimination in AI. The contributions of Hania Chalal, activist and the former president of Muslim Students of France (Etudiants Musulmans de France – EMF), were insightful for the situation of French Muslim women and advocacy in the aftermath of the French abaya ban in schools. FEMYSO was pleased to host the Director of the European Network Against Racism, Kim Smoulter, and the Director of Policy and Advocacy for the European Youth Forum, Ozgecan Kara.  

The role that institutions have in upholding and spreading anti-Muslim sentiment, is a topic especially poignant to FEMYSO, due to the shocking revelations this year from the smear campaign that FEMYSO and other major organizations faced. As revealed in a year-long joint investigation by European Investigative Collaborations, this campaign aimed to destroy FEMYSO’s reputation and marginalize the young people we represent in public life. It has resulted in increased censorship and the removal of our representatives from important events and youth advisory bodies and has hindered the historical cooperation between European institutions and FEMYSO. FEMYSO, therefore, is calling for clear and effective European strategies to tackle the growing issue of systemic Islamophobia. 

With the endemic stigmatization and exclusion of Muslims from all areas of life, FEMYSO wants to create a space to discuss future-looking policies and how these are likely to affect the lived experience of young Muslims in Europe. With the known concerns of bias in artificial intelligence systems, and how this risk impacts young people in the job market, in their access to education, or simply existence in public spaces; upcoming European Elections, and the expected rise in Islamophobic rhetoric; FEMYSO believes that it is vital that diverse stakeholders are brought together to discuss policies on these critical issues. 

On Thursday 21st of September 2023, FEMYSO was proud to have hosted an event that explored the different manifestations of Islamophobia, with specific attention to youth. Different institutional representatives and civil society organizations working on youth, education, and discrimination presented their inputs and findings to ensure an inclusive and effective approach to addressing Islamophobia. In line with our human rights to freedom of faith and right to security, it is essential that young Muslims are free to practice their faith and in their rights as individuals in Europe today. We look forward to welcoming more attendees at next year’s conference, EADAI24. 

Please find the recording of panel discussions using the following links:  

  1. Panel discussion 1: https://fb.watch/nCuhvYyqjR/ 
  1. Panel discussion 2: https://fb.watch/nCudz_1TNW/ 

For more information or media inquiries, reach out to FEMYSO’s Head of Media at head.media@femyso.org.  

European Day Against Islamophobia 2022

The European Action Day Against Islamophobia represents a major opportunity for Muslim youth that FEMYSO helped to create with EU institutions to bring the attention of stakeholders on the issue of islamophobia in Europe, sharing key facts with them as well as tools that they can bring in their fields of work to tackle islamophobia.   

The gradual increase of islamophobia at all levels has led to the aspirations of young European Muslims to be deeply affected and as of now, a clear and effective European strategy is lacking to tackle this issue. 

With the endemic stigmatization and exclusion of Muslims from all areas of life, in the job market, in their access to education, or simply in public spaces, there is the necessity to recognize this serious phenomenon and ensure that policies protecting against islamophobia are put in place.   

Today, FEMYSO was proud to hold an event in Brussels that explored in-depth the different manifestations of Islamophobia, with specific attention to the “youth” component. Different institutional representatives and civil society organizations working on youth, education, and discrimination presented their inputs and findings to ensure an inclusive and effective approach to addressing Islamophobia.  

Watch the video of the event here.

FEMYSO, together with all our Member Organisations, stay committed to a more diverse, cohesive and vibrant Europe, in which all is free and safe to live and believe as they wish.

FEMYSO Statement on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 

Today, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, we at FEMYSO, a majority female-led pan-European Muslim youth organisation, commemorate victims and survivors of all forms of violence against women and girls, and recognise the voices of all courageous women and girls who tirelessly continue to fight for human rights.

Violence against women is a human rights violation and must be eliminated in all its forms. Indeed, it is “one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in our world today [and] remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it” (UN Women). 

Within a context of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, the eyes of many have opened more to the reality of gendered violence. According to the UN, even before the pandemic hit us, 243 million women and girls were abused by their intimate partners in the 12 months prior to the pandemic – globally. This violence only intensified, and instances only increased during the pandemic, as a result of sheltering at home from the global pandemic and of the limitation of support services. Furthermore, intersectional forms of discrimination, such as gendered Islamophobia, remained further under-reported and not spotted.

This devastating reality gives us at FEMYSO a deeper motivation to continue to develop and deliver human rights education programmes and campaigns, as well as to improve the safeguarding and implementation of robust safety and support services within our organisational structure. Indeed, since abuse is not always physical, we are currently preparing a dedicated training programme on mental health at the European Youth Centre in Budapest early next year. 

A flagship example is our current partnership with civil society organisations for Project MEET – an EU-funded comprehensive programme aimed at tackling gendered Islamophobia. This is intersectional discrimination that Muslim women and girls suffer based mainly on grounds of ethnicity, religion and gender. Indeed, the majority of the ways in which Islamophobia is produced, is targeted towards women: due to their dress and the idea that Muslim women are oppressed and must be liberated. These attacks are highly personalised, because they depend on individuals identifying Muslim women and punishing them for their identity. 

At FEMYSO, it is our mission to strive for a diverse, cohesive and vibrant Europe, and the commitment to end all forms of violence against women and girls is part of this. 

[END]  

  

Notes:  

  1. FEMYSO (est. 1996) is a network organisation for 33 Muslim youth and student organisations across 20 European countries, and is the leading voice for European Muslim youth, developing and empowering them, and working to build a more diverse, cohesive and vibrant Europe.  
  1. For more media-related information or requests please email media@femyso.org. 

The attack on the Council of Europe’s Hijab campaign is an attack on human rights

A recent online campaign promoted and led by the Council of Europe’s Anti-Discrimination department, following a workshop in cooperation with FEMYSO, has been attacked by hypocritical French public and political figures who continue to exercise their double standards when it comes to the topic of human rights by promoting liberty only for some and especially not Muslim communities.  

The campaign for the celebration of diversity, including the headscarf, follows on from our collaboration with the Council of Europe’s Anti-Discrimination Department. This specific partnership was in the form of two online workshops aimed at creating human rights-based narratives to counter anti-Muslim hate speech, taking place from the 27-28 September, in a framework of a deep history and continuous forms of cooperation with other parts of the Council of Europe, such as the European Youth Centres and through our representation at the Council of Europe’s Advisory Council on Youth.

As experts on this we facilitated three groups to guide the participants through a process that aimed to analyse hate speech, develop our own human rights narrative as a response. The participants, who belonged to diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, proactively debated the challenges posed by Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate speech, crafting campaigns aimed at raising awareness on the aforementioned issues. The visual campaign showcasing diversity and portraying young Muslim women wearing the hijab, was a result of this workshop.  

As FEMYSO we are extremely sad to see efforts by Muslim youth once again attacked and undermined by individuals and governments alike. We are deeply concerned and saddened that our collaboration on building human-rights based narratives to tackle anti-Muslim hate speech was attacked. This is yet another example of how young progressive voices are sidelined and Muslim women’s rights are non-existent to those who abuse notions such as liberty, secularism, equality and freedom. 

These attacks on this vital campaign take place in a wider environment of a shrinking of civic space, where government actors routinely censor and limit the freedom of speech when not fitting their political agenda. Such backlash and attacks supported by unfounded arguments, ostracise the work that we do as a civil society and hinders our attempt to represent the voices of those whose voice is not always heard.  

FEMYSO President Hande Taner said “In the face of such heavy racist and anti-Muslim attacks, institutions should stand firm in their messaging in support of human rights, condemning the violation of the freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We firmly believe that everyone has the right and freedom to wear (and not to wear) what they want. Those two are not extremes and do not exclude each other, rather they go together. This is a basic fundamental right.” 

At FEMYSO we will continue to participate proactively in the public debate by protecting human and fundamental rights, by organising trainings and campaigns, and by standing in solidarity with our civil society partners against all forms of oppression. 

Notes:   

  1. FEMYSO (est. 1996) is a network organisation for 33 Muslim youth and student organisations across 20 European countries, and is the leading voice for European Muslim youth, developing and empowering them, and working to build a more diverse, cohesive and vibrant Europe.    
  2. For more media-related information or requests please email media@femyso.org.