In expressing his commitment to combat pedophilia, British Home Secretary put unnecessary emphasis on the descent of the perpetrators, thus risking stigmatising a whole community rather than just the culprits. This is Britain's media monitoring highlight for October.

On “With you” programme on SKAI TV, a panel of guests were allowed to express a series of derogatory anti-Muslim and racist remarks without being unchallenged by the host. Despite being introduced as “ordinary citizens”, some of them were editors of far-right newspapers. This is Greece's media monitoring highlight for October.

In a column on Epoch Times, a far-right author claims that a UN agreement is a proof of conspiracy, and describes Muslim prayers in public spaces as “provocative”. This is Germany's media monitoring highlight for October.

Hirado, a TV programme on the Hungarian public broadcaster, claims that Hungary is providing a safe space for Jews because of their anti-immigration policies. This is Hungary's media monitoring highlight for October.

On 19th September 2018, Belgium’s leading progressive francophone daily Le Soir published a video-guide to the upcoming elections. Among other information, their video claimed that around 130,000 foreign citizens have been fraudulently registered as voters.

Belgian right-wing youth movement ‘Schild en Vrienden’ is being investigated for antisemitic, anti-Muslim, xenophobic, racist and sexist content posted on secret Facebook groups.

In June this year, the self-described “independent patriotic newspaper of all Greeks” Makeleio published an anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, nationalist and homophobic tirade against the current mayor of Thessaloniki Yiannis Boutaris. 

Richard Dawkins tweeted a comparison between the Christian and the Muslim calls to prayer, the Church bells and the Adhan, calling one “nice” and the other “aggressive”. We felt this was more of an prejudiced view about Islam than a detailed auditory analysis.  You can read the full article here.

An article in Le Vif calls the face veil “an ideological uniform” and claims that the “promoters of women’s face veil obviously have a political agenda” incompatible with democracy and human rights.

On 5^th August 2018, the popular British newspaper The Daily Telegraph published an op-ed about Denmark’s Burqa Ban by the former British Foreign Secretary [Foreign Affairs Minister] Boris Johnson. In the article, Johnson uses Islamophobic language that calls women who wear the burqa “ridiculous” and compares them to “letter boxes” and “bank robber[s]”. He has been widely criticised for this and told to apologise by his own Conservative party.