Czech Republic's tiny Muslim community subject to hate
Czech Republic's tiny Muslim
community subject to hate
by Philip Heijmans Aljazeera
November 13, 2017
MUSLIMS IN
CZECH REPUBLIC
Estimates say between 5,000 and
20,000 Muslims live in Czech Republic
Islamic community comprises just 0.2
percent of population
Hate crimes have risen amid
Islamophobia as Muslims quit country
Prague,
Czech Republic - Walking
along the idyllic streets of Prague just blocks away from the famed Wenceslas
Square, 38-year-old Palestinian-born Raed Shaikh stopped to point out a halal
grocery store he and the handful of other Muslim residents in town frequent.
He then motioned towards a
Middle Eastern restaurant to the right, hidden behind a small mosque.
"Here is the highest
concentration of Muslims in Prague," the IT project manager said
laughingly.
Though no exact figures
exist, the Muslim community in the Czech Republic is small, between 5,000 and 20,000, or
less than 0.02 percent of the total population.
Just a portion lives in
Prague.
Yet Islam has become a
hot-button topic in Czech national politics, where the power to resolve the
country's hung parliament could lie with a politician whose only policy is,
"No to Islam. No to terrorism".
Czech-Japanese entrepreneur
Tomio Okamura and his Freedom and Direct Democracy Party (SPD) rode into parliament as the third most powerful party
after the recent October nationwide elections, with no discernible policy other
than to drive Islam completely out of the Czech Republic.
The campaign slogan was
convincing enough for the newly formed SPD to scoop significant votes in its
first ever electoral race.
Having built ties to other
far-right movements in Europe, such as Marine Le Pen's National Front in France, Okamura hopes to achieve his goal through ongoing
coalition talks with controversial billionaire Andrej Babis, who is slated to
become the country's next prime minister.
Babis' Action of Dissatisfied
Citizens Party (ANO) won the October elections in decisive fashion but did not
secure a simple majority. Now he must form a coalition with a fragmented
parliament that has expressed little willingness to work with the populist
agro-magnate who at the time of the elections was being investigated for fraud.
Muslims quit country amid rising Islamophobia
Some Muslims in Prague fear
that the circumstances may lead to an alliance with Okamura, giving him an
unprecedented platform - a worrying prospect given ANO and SPD's common disdain
for Muslim refugees.
"We have to fight for
what our ancestors built here. If there will be more Muslims than Belgians in
Brussels, that's their problem. I don't want that here. They won't be telling
us who should live here," Babis told journalists in June.
This type of increasingly
hostile rhetoric against migrants has profoundly stoked Islamophobia. For the
members of Prague's small Muslim community, it is a sign of worrying times
ahead.
Most of the Muslims here are
doctors, engineers and IT specialists and so on, yet some political parties are
trying to change our rights and eliminate Islam
VLADIMIR
SANKA, BOARD MEMBER OF MUSLIM COMMUNITY IN PRAGUE ASSOCIATION
"Many of our friends
have already left, and if [Islamophobia] was not the first reason, it would
certainly be the second," the Palestinian-born Shaikh said.
Currently, Islam is
recognised as a religion in the Czech Republic, but its followers are
restricted from several basic privileges enjoyed by other faiths, including the
right to establish schools, to hold legally recognised weddings and conduct
religious ceremonies in public spaces.
"Most of the Muslims
here are doctors, engineers and IT specialists and so on, yet some [political]
parties…are trying to change our rights and eliminate Islam," said
Vladimir Sanka, a 58-year-old Czech Muslim, who is on the board of the Muslim
Community in Prague association.
'Nobody can forbid freedom of religion'
With negotiations between the
two parties ongoing, Okamura has already told local media that ANO has pledged
to consider a restriction on asylum for Muslims and a ban on
"Sharia", or Islamic law, and that SPD will not support Babis unless
an agreement is reached.
Lubomir Kopecek, a political
analyst at Masaryk University in Brno, said that an alliance at this stage is
unlikely, though, by no means unfeasible.
"If an ANO and Okamura
government would happen in the next weeks or months, it could change many
things," he said, referring to religious freedoms.
Even if the two parties did
align, they would have a hard time carrying out such a ban, the chief of the
Constitutional Court, Pavel Rychetsky, told local media saying: "Nobody
can forbid freedom of religion and belief."
Still, the move would not be
unprecedented for the region.
Slovakia last year passed a law effectively banning Islam
from gaining official status as a religion.
Making matters worse, growing
anti-Islam sentiment has resulted in an uptick in hate speech and even physical
attacks against Muslims who moved here long before the refugee crisis.
In July, local media reported
two Muslim women were escorting a group of children to an aquapark in Prague
when a third woman began verbally and physically assaulting them.
One of the victims was
Shaikh's wife.
"It is becoming more and
more tough here, unfortunately," he said.
Shaikh, who twice debated the
issue with Okamura on Czech television in 2015, said it has become
difficult for his community to find a place in Prague to gather for Eid al-Fitr
- the celebration at the end of Ramadan - in recent years.
Large halls want nothing to
do with Muslims.
"It wasn't a problem for
23 years, but a couple of years ago it became mission impossible," said
Shaikh.
Czechs exhibit 'highest level of racial bias in Europe'
Like its eastern
neighbours, Poland and Hungary, the Czech Republic's attitude towards
migrants soured in 2015 after an escalation of attacks in Western Europe and as
the refugee crisis continued to unfold.
Despite a very small number
of Muslims and never having fallen victim to attack, the perceived threat of
attacks paired with a tradition of nativism - for example, the longstanding
persecution of the ethnic Romani - has made the country susceptible to populism
and far-right attitudes.
According to a Harvard
University survey published earlier in 2017, of the hundreds of thousands
of people in Europe, Czechs exhibited a higher level of implicit racial bias
than in any other European country.
In Prague, politicians
including President Milos Zeman have sought advantage by adopting tough
positions on Muslims, standing in fierce opposition to EU refugee quotas, taking just 12 of nearly 2,700 refugees
allotted by the European Commission.
The stance has led to
inflammatory rhetoric, with Zeman remarking that Muslim integration in Czech
society is "practically impossible".
Such rhetoric has paved the
way for anti-Islam groups like Block Against Islam, which is known for staging
outlandish events that last year included dressing up in traditional Muslim
garb and mocking the Hajj pilgrimage by marching around a portable toilet meant
to resemble the Holy Kaaba at Mecca.
In a separate event, the
group staged a fake Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) invasion at Old Town Square that
included a mock beheading.
"They are a small group,
but they want to provoke a reaction and hope that we react so that they can say
they told us so," Sanka said.
Exacerbating the issue, the
Czech Republic has fallen victim to a destabilising disinformation campaign -
widely believed to be perpetrated by the Kremlin - that hopes to see Czechs
turn against western-backed democratic politics in favour of illiberal
autocrats.
In order to do that, dozens
of fake news organisations established in recent years have focused on creating
a false narrative against Muslims with the goal of herding the populace towards
populists.
HateFree, an
anti-discrimination organisation run by the government has debunked
approximately 100 anti-Muslim hoax stories in the Czech Republic over the past
few years.
"We don't have the
capacity to do much here, but we are still in a very tough position,"
Shaikh said of his small community.
"On every corner, on
every TV and newspaper, you can see their stance and the fear, so it is no
wonder why people are scared."
My response:
Islamophobia is not just an issue in Europe. Muslims have all
been cast under the shadow of such events as 9/11, and then they moved in to
become the next door neighbor of people all over the world. The image of the
terrorist is in the news is in many people’s minds when they see a Muslim down
the street, many people have difficulties understanding a Muslim’s daily life
and what beliefs they practice on a daily basis. As a result, Muslims,
regardless of their social background or past, are being met with fear and
suspicion. In many cases I don't believe Islamophobia is driven by hate in the
ordinary person, though it could certainly develop to that. I believe it is
fear. Though in the mist of technology that connects people around the globe,
this world is only becoming bigger and scarier. Many people prefer to hide in
their closets, convinced that will protect them from the monster under the bed.
Statements such as, “To stop immigrants is t0 stop IS.” are
being unreasonable and putting people in boxes. It’s bias in its worse form,
blind to the fact that they are people and aware of only what is different
between us. There’s the politician whose only policy is, "No to Islam. No
to terrorism". Do we know who we are saying no to? Looking at one
religion, Muslims are 1.8 million people, we can't pretend they are all the
same.
The Muslims going to live abroad are not just refugees, there
are medical students and doctors, teachers, and other people whose title of
professions are stripped away, and are given low-paying jobs such as janitors on
the basis of their religion. I agree that a country should look out for the
welfare of its people, but the people it is preventing from coming in are not
all bad. They could be preventing good as well.
This bias against Muslims is going beyond limits of what I had
heard of before, it is mocking them. Protestors gathered in front of an Arab
embassy dressed up to mock the Hajj to march around a toilet. This kind of
protest is not protecting yourself but hurting others. Hate speech is not free
speech. It hinders another person’s rights, and hurts a country more than it
helps. It’s good to know that there are such organizations as HateFree who are
trying to fight this, but what is the government doing? From the article it
sounds like that if they are not the ones perpetuating the acts they are at
least supporting it.
Since Aljazeera has its
base in the Middle East it would be concerned with how Muslims are treated
globally. The bias in this article is evident, is shows the obvious
discrimination of the people of the Czech Republic towards Muslims coming into
their country. I think its audience is more globally minded, and the article is
trying to raise awareness for a people who are being mistreated. The article
wants a response, and possibly even to challenge the Czechs if they were to
ever read the article. It also calls out for the need for the ordinary person
to be educated on Islam, and developing a better reaction towards the Muslims
we meet than the immediate response of fear. We need a better system of
evaluating people, not just at face value. Not just anyone should be allowed to
enter a secure country with the potential for harm, but does that stop
everyone?
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