RSS FeedHatred Towards Jews and Muslims Linked
A person who hates Jews is more likely to hate Muslims as well, and vice versa. And people who go to a weekly religious service are less likely to hate a Muslim.
These findings come from Gallup poll results published this morning in a report, Religious Perceptions in America: With an In-Depth Analysis of U.S. Attitudes Toward Muslims and Islam.
Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post said,
… the Gallup poll was prompted partly by Obama’s outreach to Muslim-majority societies and a desire to understand more about what shapes Americans’ views on Islam.
In a note accompanying the poll results, Gallup makes the argument that Americans’ prejudice against Muslims is at least partly fueled by misinformed beliefs. For example, people who believe Muslims worldwide oppose equal rights for men and women tend to be much more likely to report prejudice against Muslims.
The report states,
…feeling “a great deal” or extreme prejudice toward Muslims is not borne out of the absence of any information about Muslims, but rather arises from being exposed to negative media coverage of Islam and its followers.
This misinformation, especially through portrayals in the media, have a particular significance in the role of radicalization, as indicated in my published letter in the Globe yesterday. Daniel Simard and I also put together a paper related to this, Media Narratives in Times of Turmoil: Depictions of Minorities in Canada Post 9/11.
Boorstein also points to a Pew Forum poll showing that Muslims experience far more discrimination than any other group, by a wide margin.
The Gallop Poll found that 53% of Americans admitted to having negative views towards Islam, and 43% acknowledged some prejudice towards Muslims.
The report also states,
Variables Associated With Self-Reported Prejudice
Links Between Anti-Jewish and Anti-Muslim Prejudice
The variable most strongly linked to self-reported prejudice toward Muslims is self-reported prejudice toward Jews. Respondents who say they feel “a great deal” of prejudice — or extreme prejudice — toward Jews are about 32 times as likely to report feeling “a great deal” of prejudice toward Muslims. While Jewish-Muslim relations sometimes suffer because of the turbulence of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, among other reasons, these findings point to an area of potential cooperation for the two communities in addressing a common concern of prejudice toward each group. Previous Gallup research indicates that, compared with other religious groups in the U.S., Muslim Americans and Jewish Americans are most similar in terms of political ideology, education, and political party identification.
The findings should spurn greater cooperation between the Muslim and Jewish communities to work together in overcoming hatred and bigotry.
Problems finding rental housing?
Rights commission targets `blatant discrimination’ in rental-housing market
There’s obvious discrimination in rental housing, says the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s annual report released yesterday, identifying the problem as a key area that needs immediate intervention.
Foreign state denies Canadians entry because of names
Israel targets Palestinian-Canadians
Since Americans appearing to have Palestinian heritage are hit also, the US Administration is twisting Israelis’ arms to change the policy. Predictably, the Canadian government is silent.
Racism not an issue in Courtenay, mayor says
(post sponsored by advicescene.com)
Housing discrimination
Landlords trample on tenants’ human rights
(post sponsored by advicescene.com)
Finci v. Bosnia at the European Court of Human Rights
The author expresses her own opinions and does not necessarily reflect those of MRG as an organization.
The European Court of Human Rights, up until Wednesday June 3 2009 at 9:15am, had never heard a case on its merits under the new Protocol 12 provision. Protocol 12 provides a stand alone prohibition on differential treatment leading to discrimination.
Prior to the hearing that I attended at the Grand Chamber in Strasbourg, discrimination under the European Convention on Human Rights was dealt with only if the Court found that the discrimination fell within the ambit of another Convention provision. This meant that discrimination was always addressed within the context of another right already guaranteed. At times however, when the Court found an existing violation under a separate provision, discrimination issues were often left by the wayside.
Times have changed. Seated in the front row of the circular-shaped courtroom stacked with seventeen appointed judges from seventeen of the Council of Europe member states, I watched it happen. The case, Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (no. 27996/06 and 34836/0), deals with two prominent members of Bosnian Herzegovinan (BiH) political society. One of Roma origin and one of Jewish faith, these two men are both prohibited by the Constitution of BiH from running for the highest levels of political office because of their ethnic and religious heritage. The BiH Constitution provides that only members of the “constituent peoples” (Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs) are eligible for these political positions. This exclusionary provision was included as a means of creating a legislative power-share arrangement amongst the warring factions following the ruthless ethnic conflict of the late 1990s.
But as counsel for the claimants argued, the time had come for the Constitution of BiH to live up to its international obligations under the Convention. As a legal intern for Minority Rights Group International (MRG), a London based NGO advocating for minority and aboriginal rights around the world, I was able to get directly involved in the issues presented to the Grand Chamber. MRG helped represent Mr. Finci, along with Clive Baldwin (formerly of MRG now at Human Rights Watch) and Sheri Rosenberg of Cardozo Law School in New York.
The arguments were simple, the politics are not. The exclusion of minority groups from running for certain levels of office in BiH is direct and obvious ethnic/religious discrimination; the most nefarious and troubling type. There exists no legitimate justification for this type of discrimination according to the case law, except in the most extreme of circumstances. The BiH government lawyers presented a tangled mess of justifications ranging from political instability to the outright powerlessness of the government to enact amendments to their own Constitution (despite having done so just one month prior).
It remains to be seen if the Court makes good use of Protocol 12 and orders the government of BiH to strike the exclusionary clause. For the sake of equality, democracy and the rule of law in the troubled state – we hope it does.
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