The Hungarian national news agency (MTI) carried an alarming news item on 28 March: ’40,000 migrants are about to set off from Turkey and Greece towards Central Europe, to be joined along the way by many more’.  The agency reported that they were gathering then and were setting off on 5 April.

French GTTO partner LICRA is planning on taking legal action against Renaud Camus based on a recent post on Twitter in which he shared extremely hateful xenophobic sentiments. 

A complaint by EUJS to a reporter at the outlet Sceptr requesting him to stop purposely framing migrants as criminals has been left without any answers. Sceptr, a nationalist alternative media site covering news in Belgium and the Netherlands, regularly handpicks articles on crimes allegedly committed by migrants, even when there is no evidence that the perpetrators are foreigners.

Greek newspaper Dimokratia reported on a sensitive case in a biased and sensationalist manner, employing a xenophobic narrative. This is Greece’s media monitoring highlight for March.

On November 15th British populist news outlet Politicalite published an article titled: “Opinion: If We Want To Stop Child Abuse, We Need To BAN Immigration From Pakistan.” The piece was authored by Councillor Ryan Macpherson, who is an independent councillor on Ashford Borough Council in Kent. The article focusses on child abuse in Pakistan, mainly of street children, and claims that due to high levels of child abuse in the country, Pakistani’s (mainly men) should not be allowed into the UK. The article has both xenophobic and Islamophobic undertones. 

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.

A Greek newspaper ran a sensationalist front page story calling immigrants cannibals, without any legitimate sources. This is Greece's media monitoring highlight for September 2018.

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.

April media monitoring highlight for France. Interviewed in Hebrew by Army Radio Galatz, Zonabend said that there are “very many, too many” Arabs in the city of Toulouse.

From a Belgian politician comparing Islam to Nazism, to fake news being portrayed misleadingly as actual news in Hungary, these June highlights are an overview of the most significant results of our monitoring of traditional and new media in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, and the United Kingdom.