Europe: Racist and xenophobic acts surge as much as 70 percent

Racism and xenophobia are becoming decidedly more pronounced across Europe, and it is fast becoming an issue of major concern for Germany which currently holds the presidency of the European Union.

"Xenophobia and racism is tremendously on the rise in Europe," said European Commission Vice President Franco Frattini said Tuesday at a news conference in Berlin:

Frattini cited a report by the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, which found that racist and xenophobic acts in 2006 compared to the previous year have risen by as much as 70 percent in "one member state."

"In many states, the surge was between 25 and 45 percent," he added.

Frattini refused to name the specific country that topped the list with 70 percent, but said the states where racism was becoming more alarming were France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.

EUMC spokeswoman Waltraud Heller told United Press International in a telephone interview the country Frattini referred to was Denmark, but added that the total cases there were minimal, also because the country lacks an efficient monitoring method. Frattini did not, however, mention Germany, another country where extremist crimes have surged according to national statistics.

Late last year, a German newspaper said that may have been a record year for neo-Nazi crimes. The German government reported 10,154 far-right crimes from January through the end of October 2006, the Tagesspiegel newspaper said. The number exceeds the intermediate results of previous years by 20 percent and is the highest since 2001, when the German government reformed criminal codes to include hate crimes. When it comes to neo-Nazi violent crimes, the submitted figure (593) is greater than each of the single year totals from 2001 until 2005.

Berlin, which currently holds the rotating six-month EU presidency, wants to revive the EU-wide framework to combat racism and xenophobia, the goal of which is to harmonize provisions on criminal liability for racist acts, disseminating racist and xenophobic statements, and for inciting violence and hatred against other peoples. Berlin wants to make denial of genocide accepted by international courts, such as the Holocaust, a crime in all 27 EU member states. Unofficially, the Germans would also like to see Nazi signs such as the Swastika banned (which is illegal in Germany). But Berlin knows that such a move will not be backed by all member states.

Germany seizes the initiative

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, who appeared alongside Frattini in the news conference, said that due to its special historic responsibility, Germany was determined to bring racism and xenophobia back on the political agenda.

"The aim of the framework decision is not to restrict people's freedom of expression," she said. "Rather, it is to honor the memory of victims of genocide and to protect all people -- regardless of their race and skin color -- against defamation."

She said while the minimal standards of the framework decision were binding for member states, countries still can go beyond those restrictions; meaning that the swastika will remain banned in Germany, for example.

Tricky details like those have been a source of debate for several years and have blocked any agreement. Zypries acknowledged there still are "different positions" in Europe on the fine line between taking advantage of free speech and inciting hatred. "But I am optimistic that we will come to an agreement before the end of the German EU presidency," she said.

The pair were also in favor of harmonizing legal standards across Europe in a bid to "strike the right balance between security and protecting individual rights," Frattini said. He agreed with Zypries that every EU member taken to court in a foreign country should be informed about the legal peculiarities of that country, have the right to an interpreter and a lawyer. While every country agreed to those minimal standards, realizing them was often difficult because of the differences in the countries' legal systems, Frattini said.

Another German initiative mentioned on Tuesday was the fight against violent computer games. That debate was sparked in Germany after violent ego-shooters appeared to have motivated young killers to embark on bloody rampages through local schools.

Frattini said the Commission supported such an initiative, adding there was still "not enough knowledge about the danger for children from very violent video games."

While most countries already have minimum age rules for buying some games, in many member states, Frattini said, there was no enforcement of these rules, with poor or totally absent in-shop control of the buyer's age.

World Peace Herald