EU institutions seek to combat social exclusion and discrimination, as well as promote social justice and protection. They also recognise the need to promote free and pluralist societies as excluding religious communities or discriminating against them can lead to extremism.
Although Muslims are the second largest religious group in the EU, there is no systematic data collection on Muslim discrimination and racist victimisation in EU Member States.
The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights’ (FRA) surveys on ethnic minorities support EU policy makers with findings based on the most extensive dataset available on Muslims in the EU. Taken together, the survey findings and the recommendations support the effectiveness of a wide range of measures in the areas of integration and non-discrimination, as well as internal security.
The survey was based on face-to-face interviews in 2016 with over 25,000 people from different immigrant and ethnic minority groups in all 28 EU Member States. Of these, over 10,500 were people who self-identified as Muslim when asked about their religion.
The Muslims interviewed were 16 or older in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. They came from: Turkey; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; and South Asia (in Cyprus, Asia). In addition, the Slovenian data refer to recent immigrants who immigrated to the EU in the past 10 years from non-EU countries.
All respondents were selected randomly and the survey results are representative for selected groups of Muslim immigrants born outside the EU (first generation) and for descendants of immigrants (second generation) with at least one parent born outside the EU. More detailed information can be found in the technical Q&A.
This survey builds on the first EU-MIDIS survey in 2008 which provided the first comparative evidence on discrimination against and crime victimisation of Muslims in 12 EU Member States.
Respondents were asked about their experiences of discrimination, crime victimisation (including hate crime), profiling and policing as well as rights awareness. They were also asked for information about civic and political participation, their personal situation and living conditions, as well as basic socio-demographic characteristics.
This report presents selected results for Muslims from the EU-MIDIS II survey. It covers: citizenship, trust and tolerance; discrimination and rights awareness; hate crime including harassment and violence; and police stops. An overview of the results for all the groups interviewed in the survey will be available in December 2017, accompanied by a comprehensive technical report.