Netherlands: Turkish singer goes back home after Schiphol questioning

Netherlands: Turkish singer goes back home after Schiphol questioning

Via DutchNews:

A Dutch concert by popular Turkish singer Arif Sag was cancelled this weekend after he gave up an returned home after lengthy questioning by officials at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

According to the Telegraaf, Sag was furious at being questioned and made to wait for so long that he took the first plane back home. Turkish papers described his treatment as 'scandalous', the Telegraaf said. 

(source)

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UK: Cardiff Councillor in racism blast at Border Agency

UK: Cardiff Councillor in racism blast at Border Agency

Via Wales Online (h/t Euro-Islam.info):

A Cardiff councillor has levelled an astonishing broadside at the UK Border Agency by accusing the authority of “indirect racism”.

Riverside councillor Mohammed Islam claims officers have targeted businesses in his ward following an incident last year where another councillor passed a constituent’s tip-off to officials.

Coun Islam, who has represented the ward since June 2004, claims UKBA is “basically going to every single Asian and ethnic minority business” in the area to check whether staff are legally entitled to work.

(source)

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Italy: Immigrants say they are treated 'worse than animals'

Italy: Immigrants say they are treated 'worse than animals'

Via ANSA:

Immigrants held at a reception center in the southern Italian town of Bari said on Thursday that they were treated "worse than animals" by authorities at the structure.

The center for identification and expulsion, with a capacity of 119 people, is currently occupied by 196 foreigners awaiting deportation, the immigrants said.

(source)

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Europe: Amnesty International Finds Bias Against Muslims

Europe: Amnesty International Finds Bias Against Muslims

Via RFE/RL:

A new report from Amnesty International has found that some European Muslims are regularly denied employment and educational opportunities because of widespread cultural and religious stereotypes that lead to discrimination against them.

The report, titled "Choice and Prejudice: Discrimination Against Muslims in Europe," examines the lives of Muslims in Switzerland, France, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands.

It found that individuals who wear specific forms of dress, like a head scarf, or other symbols associated with Islam, do worse with jobs and schooling because of prejudicial attitudes and legal impunity in these European states.

(source)

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Netherlands: Minister takes on discrimination in discos

Netherlands: Minister takes on discrimination in discos

Via RNW:

Integration Minister Gerd Leers is planning to tackle pubs, restaurants and discos which discriminate against people with a non-Dutch background.

He has told parliament that he intends to discuss with police and city councils what can be done to combat discrimination. He doesn’t rule out carrying out undercover operations and withdrawing licences. Mr Leers also wants something done about temping agencies that discriminate.

(source)

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France: 57% distrust 'violent' suburban youth

France: 57% distrust 'violent' suburban youth

Via the Local:

Nearly 60 percent of the French say they distrust youth from the 'banlieues', France's impoverished, immigrant-dominated suburbs, according to a new survey that has laid bare the country's divisions.

"The results are extremely worrying," Thibault Renaudin, national secretary of Afev, the youth organisation which published the poll, told The Local.

"Youths from the banlieues already suffer from discrimination, unemployment, and this suspicion just adds their difficulties."

A poll conducted by Afev shows that while 75 percent of the French have a positive opinion of young people, 57 percent have a negative opinion of youths from improverished suburbs.

(source)

READ MORE - France: 57% distrust 'violent' suburban youth

Switzerland: Anti-racism week

Switzerland: Anti-racism week



Via swissinfo:

Swiss cantons and cities have joined forces to stamp out racism, which some observers say is on the rise. But their week-long campaign only targets part of the country.

Seven French- and Italian-speaking cantons this week launched the first joint anti-racism action on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, under the slogan “Diversity – a Swiss value?”

(source)

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Bavaria: Police union prints racist calendar

Bavaria: Police union prints racist calendar




Via the Local:

Bavarian police chiefs are ordering thousands of racist and tasteless calendars printed by the police union be taken down from the walls of cop shops across the state – a full two months after the German media pointed out its faults.

(...)

They have already had a month of looking at grotesque caricatures of two middle-Eastern with massive hooked noses, and another black man with huge red lips, representing the three wise men. They are being told by another normal looking pair of white Bavarian police officers that they must pick up the droppings of their camels. The black man is already on his knees doing so.

(source)

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Switzerland: CoE urges new law amid "rising racism"

Switzerland: CoE urges new law amid "rising racism"

Via swissinfo:

The Council of Europe’s human rights chief has called for an overhaul of Swiss anti-discrimination law and policy.

Intolerance and racism are “dangerously on the rise”, the commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, said after a four-day review of Swiss policies and practices.

The review was part of the Council of Europe’s ongoing assessments of the human rights situation in member states. The last such Swiss review was in 2004 and this time around it paid particular attention to how Switzerland was fighting racism and xenophobia.

(source)

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