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.

World Hijab Day 2022 #HandsOffMyHijab

Today marks World Hijab Day 2022. What is clear, is that the importance of this day has only increased since its inception – FEMYSO alongside our civil society partners would like to reiterate the clear statement #HandsOffMyHijab.  

The constant attack on the Hijab is centred in a patriarchal view that those in power have the right to legislate on women’s bodies. What a woman chooses to wear (and not to wear) is her own decision and those that seek to undermine this basic fundamental right should be seen as pariah.  

It is hypocrisy of the highest order to governments that seek to rightfully condemn other countries for human rights violations, to enact their own when it comes to the choice a Muslim woman makes whether to wear religious clothing.  

The recent decision by the French Senate to ban the Hijab in sports is one of many clear human rights violations that our region has seen. Sport is a unifying platform where one’s talent and work ethic should be the only consideration made. Instead, Muslim women now have to make the choice between wearing religious clothing and engaging in the sport they love.  

In July 2021, a political decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was passed which once again gives a free pass to employers to ban the headscarf. This saw the ECJ prioritise the financial interests of employers and prejudiced customers as more important than the rights of those who are perpetually made vulnerable and kept in a vicious circle of discrimination. 

FEMYSO President Hande Taner said ‘My choice to wear the Hijab was my own and one that has led to numerous barriers being placed in front of me in my pursuit to help shape a more just world. The efforts by many across our region to limit Muslim women like myself due to this aspect of my faith is a shameful endeavour that the generations to come will look upon with shame – #HandsOffMyHijab and the Hijabs of all the incredible young women I represent across our region.’  

As part of our work to tackle Gendered Islamophobia, FEMYSO has launched a survey that seeks to tackle the issues faced by Muslim women in the job market, translated into 8 languages, please take part here.  

We once again call upon EU Member States to stop their obsession with Muslim women’s bodies. We call on the EU and all its institutions to recognise the impact of Gendered Islamophobia on its citizens and to work alongside civil society to implement impactful and holistic policy to tackle this human rights violation.
 

  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.

The EU Court of Justice institutionalises sexism and Islamophobia again

Brussels, 16 July 2021  

At FEMYSO, we are utterly outraged at the political decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which once again gives a free pass to employers to ban the Islamic headscarf. This is nothing less than a blatant reduction of the rights of visibly Muslim women in the EU, and thus nothing less than the institutionalisation of Islamophobia.  

Disguised under a layer of ‘neutrality’, the judgement in the joined cases C-804/18 and C-341/19, Wabe and Müller, on the right to wear religious clothing (headscarf) at work, solely panders to the prejudices of customers and employers by favouring racism over the right to non-discrimination. Indeed, the ECJ prioritises the financial interests of employers and prejudiced customers as more important than the rights of those who are perpetually made vulnerable and kept in a vicious circle of discrimination. This case demonstrates that Muslim lives are a justifiable exception to otherwise robust anti-discrimination legislation in the EU.  

Instead of acting as a powerful voice for the social and human aspect of European integration and protecting the rights of those who are most marginalised in our “Union of Equality”, this ruling provides a legal basis for further discrimination against Muslim Women in the job market. In simple terms, the prejudices of some are being placed above the human rights of others.

This political act adds to the hostile environment that Muslim communities face across our region. The 

Impact of islamophobia on our lives both in a structural sense – of which this is an example – and everyday prejudice, cannot be understated, with Muslim women most often as the biggest victims who.

We call on the European Court of Justice to revise this judgement, and EU Member States to stop the obsession with Muslim women’s bodies. We call on the EU and all its institutions to recognise the impact of Islamophobia on its citizens and to work alongside civil society to tackle this disease.

 

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. Graphic design credits: Limma Ali / Ali.Illustrate
  3. The Times, 15 July 2021 “Hijab can be banned at work, rules EU court” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hijab-can-be-banned-at-work-rules-eu-court-g8px0mlms?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1626347525  
  4. Al Jazeera, 15 July 2021 “Top EU court rules hijab can be banned at work” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/15/top-eu-court-rules-hijab-can-be-banned-at-work  
  5. For more information or requests please email media@femyso.org.