Hajar El Jahidi, from Get The Trolls Out! partner European Forum of Muslim Women, wrote an article for the Middle East Eye discussing a recent co-authored an op-ed piece denouncing the discrimination faced by Muslim women in Europe in the jobs market, and the reaction to it. Being one of the authors of the op-ed piece, Hajar explains how one journalist from the French magazine Marianne claimed the piece was an organised attack on French secularism. 

In recent weeks, Chemnitz became the focus of public attention, in Germany as well as abroad. Over the course of several days, there were right-wing extremist attacks on counter-demonstrators, journalists, Muslims, and the Jewish establishment. 

If one analyses the media in Europe today it becomes evident that there has been a rise and acceptance of xenophobic, racist and anti-religion narratives. This has evidently run parallel to – and quite possibly has been one of the effects of – the surge of right-wing extremism movements and of ultra-nationalist groups in many parts of the region. Some media outlets have been echoing such narratives, thus reinforcing them. Media and journalists face a serious challenge in tackling these discourses of prejudice, intolerance and hostility towards the other and otherness.

Our partner in Hungary, Centre for Independent Journalism, commissioned an interview with Professor Daniel Monterescu, Associate Professor of Urban Anthropology at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Central European University. 

Our partner in Hungary, Centre for Independent Journalism, held a workshop in Hungary for 20 journalists. The workshop was titled "Deception, misinformation and the impact – use of journalistic language” and focussed on the topic of manipulative language. Specifically, the workshop covered the Hungarian media and political landscape, which is heavily influenced by emotive and manipulative language. It has come to a point where now even the independent press is taking over the language used by Orbán and his government. 

Sometimes online hate speech hits the comment sections rather unexpectedly, but most of the time it follows an established pattern. One example is news articles about the Arab-Israeli conflict that usually lead to a wave of antisemitism. It does not even need to be coverage of the actual military conflict. Even Israeli culture and music can serve as a canvas for bigotry, as an example from May revealed yet again. 

The French conservative magazine Valeurs Actuelles published a series of articles focused on George Soros, where he is described as “the billionaire conspiring against France”. In the 16-page long piece, published on 10 May 2018, three journalists link George Soros to the financing of a number of illegal activities, including “supporting terrorism” and “world disorder”. 

The prominence given to immigration in domestic Hungarian politics since 2015 has surprised migration experts. It took a particularly distinct form in the period leading up to the general election in April 2018, when migration was placed centre-stage, albeit presented in a distorted, negative way, in the government-controlled media such as the Hungarian news website Origo (origo.hu). We never thought that we would witness such a clear example of moral panic.

A rise in antisemitism in Germany has been making headlines lately, and we’re giving you a condensed overview of what has been happening.