Conferences and debates
Index / Activities / Conferences and debates / Managing diversity, public policies and Islamophobia in Europe
Managing diversity, public policies and Islamophobia in Europe
May 29, 20194:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
4:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In Spanish.
Casa Árabe and Spain’s Diplomatic School have organized this round table
discussion for Thursday, May 29 in Madrid, which will bring to a close
the course titled “Islam and Muslims Today.”
The event will include the participation of Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos, a scientific advisor for the European Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA); Karoline Fernández de la Hoz Zeitler, director of the Spanish Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia, and Inés Mazarrasa Steinkuhler, director of the Pluralism and Co-existence Foundation. The event will be moderated by Pedro Rojo, president of the Al Fanar Foundation and co-director of the Observatory of Islamophobia in the Media.
According to the most internationally verified data, which is produced by the PEW Research Center, in its latest study completed in 2015, European Muslims amount to 2.4% of all the Muslims in the world (approximately 44 million), and of them 1% (about 20 million) are located inside the EU. In Spain, it is estimated that in 2015 there were approximately 1.18 million Muslims (2.6% of the Spanish population), though other sources (the Observatorio Andalusí, UCIDE) state higher figures, at nearly two million people, or 4% of the population. Whatever the case may be, we are still at figures far lower than other countries in Europe (such as France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Sweden, Greece or the United Kingdom, in that order), which have a longer tradition receiving immigrants from Muslim majority countries, and greater experience managing communities of different religious and national characteristics. The models for managing this diversity chosen by each country are also quite different and varied, as are the outcomes seen in the social, economic and cultural fabric that they produce, with positive, as well as negative, lessons in various arenas.
The goal of this gathering is to analyze how religious diversity is being managed and what public policies are being promoted in European Union countries to promote cohesion within their societies, which are increasingly diverse and plural, and how to fight Islamophobia, xenophobia and racism, at a key time in European history, when a more or less inclusive model of society is being discussed, the topic we wish to address.
Event information sheet
According to the most internationally verified data, which is produced by the PEW Research Center, in its latest study completed in 2015, European Muslims amount to 2.4% of all the Muslims in the world (approximately 44 million), and of them 1% (about 20 million) are located inside the EU. In Spain, it is estimated that in 2015 there were approximately 1.18 million Muslims (2.6% of the Spanish population), though other sources (the Observatorio Andalusí, UCIDE) state higher figures, at nearly two million people, or 4% of the population. Whatever the case may be, we are still at figures far lower than other countries in Europe (such as France, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, Sweden, Greece or the United Kingdom, in that order), which have a longer tradition receiving immigrants from Muslim majority countries, and greater experience managing communities of different religious and national characteristics. The models for managing this diversity chosen by each country are also quite different and varied, as are the outcomes seen in the social, economic and cultural fabric that they produce, with positive, as well as negative, lessons in various arenas.
The goal of this gathering is to analyze how religious diversity is being managed and what public policies are being promoted in European Union countries to promote cohesion within their societies, which are increasingly diverse and plural, and how to fight Islamophobia, xenophobia and racism, at a key time in European history, when a more or less inclusive model of society is being discussed, the topic we wish to address.
The round table discussion will end the course Islam and Muslims Today, organized by both of these institutions from May 6 through 29, 2019. After the event, diplomas will be given out to the course’s students, by Fernando Fernández-Arias Minuesa, Ambassador of Director of the Diplomatic School, and Pedro Martínez-Avial, the General Director of Casa Árabe.
Event information sheet
Photo: Mark Faviell (sculpture by Jaume Plensa, We, 2008)
Ioannis N. Dimitrakopoulos is a social
scientist educated in the United Kingdom. Since 1984, he has been a
professor at the University of Ioannina and Athens College, and he has
carried out or coordinated national and transnational research projects
financed by the EU in various fields related with human rights,
including discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism, the Roma people,
children’s rights, etc. He has authored a textbook on Greek political
and legal institutions, as well as several articles. He began to work
for the European Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) in 2003 and since then
has been responsible for drafting its main reports.
Karoline Fernández de la Hoz Zeitler is a medical doctor and surgeon who graduated from the University of Barcelona, with a Master’s degree in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as having completed diploma programs in Public Health, Epidemiology and Statistics. Since April of 2015, she has been the director of the Spanish Racism and Xenophobia Observatory (OBERAXE) of the State Secretariat of Migrations, which forms part of Spain’s Ministry of Labor, Migrations and Social Security. She is also the representative in Spain of the European Human Rights Agency, at the Office for Democratic Human Rights Institutions (ODHIR), of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Commission’s high-level group to fight racism and xenophobia.
Inés Mazarrasa Steinkuhler has a bachelor’s degree in Economic Sciences from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Master’s degree in the Environment and Development Policies from the University of Sussex (United Kingdom). Director of the Pluralism and Co-existence Foundation since January of 2019, she has spent most of her career in the international arena and has over fifteen years of experience in development cooperation on different projects carried out in Tunisia, the Palestinian Territories, Senegal, Cape Verde and Ethiopia from 2001 through 2013. She has also completed work in strategic planning, management, tracking and evaluation of public policies for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency (AECID). She is currently working as an independent consultant on international projects.
Karoline Fernández de la Hoz Zeitler is a medical doctor and surgeon who graduated from the University of Barcelona, with a Master’s degree in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as having completed diploma programs in Public Health, Epidemiology and Statistics. Since April of 2015, she has been the director of the Spanish Racism and Xenophobia Observatory (OBERAXE) of the State Secretariat of Migrations, which forms part of Spain’s Ministry of Labor, Migrations and Social Security. She is also the representative in Spain of the European Human Rights Agency, at the Office for Democratic Human Rights Institutions (ODHIR), of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Commission’s high-level group to fight racism and xenophobia.
Inés Mazarrasa Steinkuhler has a bachelor’s degree in Economic Sciences from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Master’s degree in the Environment and Development Policies from the University of Sussex (United Kingdom). Director of the Pluralism and Co-existence Foundation since January of 2019, she has spent most of her career in the international arena and has over fifteen years of experience in development cooperation on different projects carried out in Tunisia, the Palestinian Territories, Senegal, Cape Verde and Ethiopia from 2001 through 2013. She has also completed work in strategic planning, management, tracking and evaluation of public policies for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency (AECID). She is currently working as an independent consultant on international projects.
The Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA)
An independent EU body financed from the European Union budget with its headquarters in Vienna, its main objective is to provide Member States and EU institutions with independent assistance and advice based on studies in the realm of fundamental rights. The FRA is the organization which took over for the former European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), but with an expanded mandate to provide consultation on a wider range of fundamental rights, in accordance with the EU Fundamental Rights Charter. The EUMC was established in 1997 and replaced by the FRA in 2007. Amongst other projects on this topic, in 2018 it published the 2012-17 Database on Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes.
The Spanish Racism and Xenophobia Observatory (OBERAXE)
The Spanish Racism and Xenophobia Observatory (OBERAXE), within the framework of its assigned tasks, gathers information on projects, surveys, resources, reports and studies promoted by the Secretariat General of Immigration and Emigration, and by other departments at Ministries, entities and institutions, with the goal of acting as a platform for knowledge, analysis and the promotion of work to fight racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, as well as hate crimes and similar incidents. It performs all of this work with the cooperation of the bodies of the Public Administration and civil society entities at the national, European Union and international levels.
The OBERAXE is currently running a European project on “Discourses of Hate, Racism and Xenophobia: Mechanisms for alert and coordinated response (AL-RE-CO),” the goal of which is to improve the State authorities’ ability to identify, analyze, monitor and evaluate hate discourses online in order to design shared strategies to deal with discourses motivated by racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-Semitism. At the same time, on the upcoming date of June 25 the OBERAXE will be hosting a seminar organized in conjunction with the European Commission’s DG-Justice to “promote synergies and good practices to fight Islamophobia,” with representatives from EU member states and NGOs involved in this arena.
The Pluralism and Co-existence Foundation
A State public sector entity created in 2004 at the proposal of the Spanish Ministry of Justice, whose mission is to create incentives for and accommodate religious diversity as basic factors in ensuring the effective exercise of religious freedom and the construction of a proper framework of peaceful co-existence. Its work is oriented towards achieving four main objectives: Contributing to institutionally strengthening religious confessions and entities; improving the public management of religious diversity; effecting the construction of an informed, tolerant public opinion towards religious pluralism, and stimulating the active participation of other important role-players for the acknowledgement and accommodation of religious diversity.
An independent EU body financed from the European Union budget with its headquarters in Vienna, its main objective is to provide Member States and EU institutions with independent assistance and advice based on studies in the realm of fundamental rights. The FRA is the organization which took over for the former European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), but with an expanded mandate to provide consultation on a wider range of fundamental rights, in accordance with the EU Fundamental Rights Charter. The EUMC was established in 1997 and replaced by the FRA in 2007. Amongst other projects on this topic, in 2018 it published the 2012-17 Database on Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes.
The Spanish Racism and Xenophobia Observatory (OBERAXE)
The Spanish Racism and Xenophobia Observatory (OBERAXE), within the framework of its assigned tasks, gathers information on projects, surveys, resources, reports and studies promoted by the Secretariat General of Immigration and Emigration, and by other departments at Ministries, entities and institutions, with the goal of acting as a platform for knowledge, analysis and the promotion of work to fight racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, as well as hate crimes and similar incidents. It performs all of this work with the cooperation of the bodies of the Public Administration and civil society entities at the national, European Union and international levels.
The OBERAXE is currently running a European project on “Discourses of Hate, Racism and Xenophobia: Mechanisms for alert and coordinated response (AL-RE-CO),” the goal of which is to improve the State authorities’ ability to identify, analyze, monitor and evaluate hate discourses online in order to design shared strategies to deal with discourses motivated by racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-Semitism. At the same time, on the upcoming date of June 25 the OBERAXE will be hosting a seminar organized in conjunction with the European Commission’s DG-Justice to “promote synergies and good practices to fight Islamophobia,” with representatives from EU member states and NGOs involved in this arena.
The Pluralism and Co-existence Foundation
A State public sector entity created in 2004 at the proposal of the Spanish Ministry of Justice, whose mission is to create incentives for and accommodate religious diversity as basic factors in ensuring the effective exercise of religious freedom and the construction of a proper framework of peaceful co-existence. Its work is oriented towards achieving four main objectives: Contributing to institutionally strengthening religious confessions and entities; improving the public management of religious diversity; effecting the construction of an informed, tolerant public opinion towards religious pluralism, and stimulating the active participation of other important role-players for the acknowledgement and accommodation of religious diversity.