Council of Europe makes solemn appeal against hate speech targeting refugees

The Council of Europe (CoE) called on public figures here Friday to take firm action on hate speech against refugees and asylum seekers who, within the context of the ongoing migration crisis, have been increasingly targeted on the European continent.

The Special Representative of the CoE Secretary General on migration and refugees, Tomas Bocek, entered the fray to appeal to political, religious, and community leaders to take action in this regard.

He invited public figures from the 47 members of the CoE to "swiftly and decisively condemn hate speech." "Every person has a right to seek protection from persecution and war," he declared.

The CoE, like many United Nations institutions and NGOs, hopes that World Refugee Day -- held every June 20 since 2001 with the goal of raising awareness of the refugee cause -- will make it possible to sound the alarm while turning the spotlight on the migratory crisis of an amplitude not seen since the end of the Second World War and which has repeatedly been front page news.

"More than a million people crossed into Europe in 2015 fleeing war, persecution and poverty at home. This unprecedented wave of migration has led to the increase of hostile attitudes towards refugees, and of Islamophobic and xenophobic hate speech at all levels," Bocek said.

With an unstable political, economic, and social climate in Europe at the moment, numerous populist parties from the extreme right have attempted to take advantage of the refugee crisis for electoral gains. This includes parties in the European Parliament where, every month during plenary sessions, some members have been making arguments against the acceptance of refugees.

For World Refugee Day on Monday, the CoE No Hate Speech Movement will organize a series of awareness-raising actions via the Internet and on the ground, in Strasbourg but also in Germany -- the European country which has accepted the largest number of refugees on its soil last year -- where a new initiative known as "Develop Alternative Perspectives" will be launched.

The CoE also announced on Friday the attribution of new subsidies to youth NGOs of which many work for the integration of young refugees, notably in Finland, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

The CoE, through its Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland, elsewhere exhorted European governments to give priority to the protection of migrant children from sexual abuse. "Refugee children are at grave risk of sexual exploitation and abuse, and face a very real danger of passing from the hands of smugglers to traffickers. The true extent of the problem is difficult to know and may be worse than we fear," he said.

It is commonly estimated that last year more than 300,000 migrant children, many unaccompanied, arrived on European territory.

European Union policies, lacking effectiveness and more divided than ever in the face of the refugee crisis, have weathered heavy criticism, as much for their philosophies as for their implementation.

Friday, the NGO Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) announced it would refuse European funds from now on in order to show its opposition to the EU's migration policy which it said "pushes back people with their suffering, far from the European coastlines."

(APD)