The recent wave of hostile, xenophobic, discriminatory and racist discourse and actions against Muslims in the European countries have been alarming following the so called “Syrian refugee crisis” in Europe and emergence of DAESH terrorist attacks throughout Europe. Hence, Islamophobia became an acute risk and a threat to European peace and stability.

To increase the awareness towards Islamophobia, Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) started to publish an annual report in 2016, namely “European Islamophobia Report”, which covers the Islamophobia and related events in approximately 25 European countries. Up to now, to share the findings of “European Islamophobia Report 2015”, SETA has organized events in Ankara, Brussels, Washington D.C. and Vienna.

On September 19, 2016 SETA organized a side-event on the issue of “Islamophobia: A Threat to Peace and Stability in Europe” in Warsaw/ Poland during the “2016 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting” organized by OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). In the side-event, the findings of the past year’s report and the events related to Islamophobia happened so far in European countries were discussed.

Panellists of the side-event included the editors of “European Islamophobia Report 2015” Dr. Enes Bayraklı and Dr. Farid Hafez, and the authors of national reports of Poland (Dr. Konrad Pedziwiatr) and Belgium (Dr. Amina Easat Daas). In the light of current developments, the event served to draw attention to the rising level of Islamophobia in the European countries.

In her opening remarks, Djermana Seta, Advisor on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims at OSCE ODIHR, drew attention that Islamophobia has been the most important threat to the peace and stability in Europe. She furtherly told that the European Islamophobia Report published by SETA is an important source for OSCE and other institutions as there was no such attempt before. She added that in order to fight against Islamophobia, such academic studies are needed.

Following the remarks of Djermana Seta, the co-editor of European Islamophobia Report Enes Bayraklı from SETA introduced the report to the audience. In his speech, Bayraklı expressed that Islamophobia as a form of discrimination has not been accepted as a hate-crime in many European states, and explained that most of those states have not put the necessary regulations against Islamophobia. Because of this, he told that Islamophobia has been damaging the multi-culturalism in Europe. As a final note, he stressed that “European Islamophobia Report” published by SETA aims to contributes the struggle against Islamophobia.

The other co-author of European Islamophobia Report Farid Hafez from Salzburg University presented the report’s core intention, and shared the general findings of the report. As being the author of the national report for Austria as well, he explained that Islamophobia has been a visible threat in those countries that were studied in the report. At the end of his speech, he listed concrete policy recommendations to combat Islamophobia in Europe.

Finally, Konrad Pedziwiatr and Amina Easat Daas, authors of European Islamophobia Report for Poland and Belgium respectively, presented the findings of the countries they studied.

The event ended with the “question-answer” section.