Publications
Xenophobia and Radicalism in France (2018-2020)
Dr. Jean-Yves CAMUS is a specialist on the French and European Radical Right and was one of the very first scholars to study the former Front national (now Rassemblement national) in the early 1980s. He has also paid early attention to the New Right and Identitarian movement, as well as to the history and ideology of the Catholic Traditionalist movement and Counter-Revolutionary thinking. His report, made for the European Center for the Development of Democracy, on xenophobia and radicalism in France covers 2018-2020. The subject of the study was changes in legislation and law enforcement practice relating to minorities, as well as hate crimes over the specified period of time. Dr. Camus also dwells on the attitude of French society towards minorities. The subject of his research is also the activities of radical organizations.
(Anti)discrimination, ideological extremism and xenophobia in the Netherlands 2018-2020
This report of the European Center for Democracy Development made by Dr. Vanja Ljujic, provides an overview of the major manifestations of ideological extremism in the Netherlands, drawing on events from 2018 through 2020. The first part presents key changes in anti-discrimination laws and summarises efforts to limit discrimination by law enforcement agencies (ethnic profiling). The second part offers brief overview of recent survey research on attitudes towards minorities, followed by statistics on discriminatory incidents targeting members of minorities. In the third part the focus shifts to different radical groups and crimes with terrorist intent.
Report of Xenophobia, radical nationalism and expressions of hatred in Poland (2018-20)
The Report prepared for the European Center for the Development of Democracy by Dr. Katarzyna du Vall examines in detail the changes in the legislation and law enforcement practice in Poland regarding minorities and hate crimes for 2018-2022.
REPORT ON DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MINORITIES AND HATE CRIME IN CANADA (2018-2020)
This report of two brilliant Canadian researchers Dr. Ali Dizboni and Mrs.Barbara Molas addresses the dynamics between radicalism, specifically the radical right and radical Islamism, and discrimination on the basis of ethnicity in Canada between the years 2018 and 2020, especially against Muslim minorities. It first presents an assessment of the legislation affecting the interests of minorities in the period under consideration, including discriminatory legislation and legislation aimed at combating hate crimes, in order to evaluate the capacity for the Canadian legislative system to protect ethnic minorities. It also analyses existing law enforcement practices affecting minorities, such as discriminatory practices and state measures to support minorities. By using both qualitative and quantitative data, this report reveals the current social attitudes towards immigrants and other ethnic and religious minorities, focusing on those which may motivate hatred and may have led to reported hate crimes. Finally, we list and expose the nature of contemporary radical-right and radical Islamist groups in Canada, describing its main ideological trends and goals.
The report concludes that there has been a steady increase in negative attitudes towards ethnic minorities, with Muslim, Jewish and Asian minorities being especially targeted. On the other hand, data suggests that Canadians cherish their multicultural traditions, and that the government can work harder to make multiculturalism work.
Discrimination, Radical Right and Islamism in the Federal Republic of Germany 2018-2020
Dr. Dmitri Stratievski, political scientist, historian, member of the Board of Commission "Strategies against the Right" (since 2014), author of numerous publications on radicalism in German society. His last Report made for ECD considers the three-year time period 2018-2020. This is due to both the inertial trends in German society, the somewhat lengthy reaction of society and representatives of the legislative and executive branches to certain events, and the considerable time required for cases in German courts, bills in national and regional parliaments, and the development of individual bylaws to implement the decisions made.
XENOPHOBIA, RADICAL NATIONALISM, AND EXPRESSIONS OF HATRED IN ITALY (2018-2020)
The Italian Police, as Dr. Anna Castriota claims, recorded circa over one-thousands of hate crimes in 2019 (data not available yet for the 2020). Of these hate crimes, 310 were inciting to violence; 241 were physical assault, and only one case was homicide. The cases recorded were hate crimes having ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation as well as bias against Roma and Sinti, and people with disability. The targeted group was immigrants and, more generally, foreigners, this is why most of the known hate crimes were related to racism and xenophobia. In 2019, 805 police reports concerned bias. Among these crimes, the most frequent ones were incitement to violence, desecration of graves, physical assaults, and threats. People with disabilities were the second most targeted group. Although in the last two years (2018-2020) in Italy the number of hate crime rose, a survey conducted in 2019, demonstrated that the Italian believed that the measures taken by the Italian authorities to fight discrimination were necessary.
MINORITIES, HATE AND RADICALISM IN SPAIN (2018-2020)
This report aims to explain the changes in several areas affecting minorities in Spain, such as legislation, law enforcement practices, hate crime, or radicalism among others, during the period from 2018 to 2020. This work builds on a previous report entitled “The Problems of Tolerance in Spain (2017)”
Russia 2018-2020. Situation of Minorities, Combating Extremism and Xenophobia.
We present a Report on Xenophobia and Hate crime in Russia prepared by Senior Fellow of the Russian Institute for Ethnic Policy and Interethnic Relations Studies Dr. Semyon Charny.
The Rights of Minorities and Hate Crime in Greece, 2018-2020
Dr. Pranvera Tika is a political scientist. Her main academic and research interests include the broad spectrum of the processes of democratization in the Balkans, right-wing extremism in Europe and in the Balkans, populism, comparative politics, euroscepticism, antisemitism, conspiracy theories, social movements, political parties, and globalization. She is completing her Ph.D. thesis at Panteion University in Athens with an emphasis on the process of democratization in the Balkan area after the fall of communism, i.e. particularly in Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania.
This report was prepared as part of a comprehensive study on xenophobia and radicalism in Europe in 2018-20. In it, the author analyzes in detail the legislation, law enforcement practice and statistics of crimes on the basis of ennavist in Greece of this time period.
Democracy, Radicalism, and Hate Crime in the United States, 2016-2020
The author describes in her article the changes that affected, first of all, the rights of minorities that took place in the United States during the period under review, when President D. Trump was in the White House. The latest upsurge of xenophobic anxieties became the keystone of Trump’s presidential election in 2016. From demonizing Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “criminals” and pledging to build a wall along the entirety of the U.S.-Mexico border, to branding Syrian refugees as a “Trojan horse” and ISIL supporters, The Trump administration has helped radicalize American political discourse that has benefited extremists across the ideological specter, ranging from proponents of the radical right to Islamists to the representatives of the radical left.
Xenophobia, Radicalism and Expressions of Hatred in the UK (2018-20)
There is the Report of Dr. William Allchorn, Associate Director of the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR) and Post-Doctoral Researcher based at the University of Leeds. Recent events in the UK relating to xenophobia, radicalism and radical right extremism suggest that racial and societal tensions are not going away any time soon. At the time of this report’s completion in December of 2020, expressions of polarisation, stigmatisation and racialisation emerged in the UK’s public life that have emboldened xenophobic, radical movements. First, and during the last week of January 2020, UK cultural nationalists targeted mosques, taxi ranks and hotels in the South Yorkshire town of Rotherham in an attempt to inflame racial tensions, telling Muslim residents of the city to “get ready and watch what we do to you”. Secondly, and in reaction to the police’s killing of George Floyd in the USA in May 2020, a wider campaign by UK radical right extremists was sparked in response to Black Lives Matters protests in the UK.
Xenophobia and human rights violations (especially of minorities) in Ukraine in 2020.
This report was prepared by the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, headed by well-known analyst Ruslan Bortnik, even before the war. Therefore, the authors does not take into account the changes in attitudes that have taken place in that country since the outbreak of the conflict, especially in the eastern part of the country. However, it will be all the more interesting to compare the situation that has developed in Ukraine in the year it began with the situation, those values and the relationship between the minority and the majority that developed after February 2022.
RUSSIAN NEO-PAGAN MYTHS AND ANTISEMITISM
An article of the well-known Russian anthropologist, Senior Fellow of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences Victor A. Shnirelman, is devoted to an interesting and little-studied problem of modern Russian Neo-paganism. Russian Neo-paganism is one branch of contemporary Russian nationalism which emerged and developed in the 1970s - 1990s. Its ideology is based on the glorification of the pre-Christian Russian past and accuses Christianity of the brutal destruction of the legacy of the Great Ancestors. At the same time, Christianity is treated as an evil ideology created by Jews in order to establish their own dominance in the world and the subjugation of all peoples. Russian Neo-paganism is in fact rooted in Nazi-style rhetoric full of latent or open antisemitism. This paper discusses the ideology and its political implications. The article was first published in 1998 (Russian Neo-pagan Myths and Antisemitism. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (ACTA № 13), 1998), but it does not lose its relevance today.
What Will Happen To Belarus After Lukashenko Falls?
Even with Vladimir Putin backing Belarusian Dictator Lukashenko, his position looking increasingly unsustainable. The future is uncertain.
MOLDOVA: NEVER ENDING ROAD TO A NEVER ACHIEVED DEMOCRACY
Igor Kotler, President and Executive Director of the Museum of Human Rights, Freedom, and Tolerance, Visiting Senior Research Fellow and Head of the US-Russia-Former Soviet Union Dialogue Project at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at the Rutgers University (USA).Today he presents the article about the situation in Republic of Moldova, post-soviet State solving the serious Problems of creation of the new Democratic Nation.
Can Volodymyr Zelensky Bring Peace to Eastern Ukraine?
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky continues to make efforts to deploy forces and establish peace in the Ukrainian region - Donbass. Despite opposition from nationalist armed groups, he managed to ensure a separation of forces in several sectors, and holding a meeting in the Norman format on December 9, 2019 in Paris gave a new impetus in the search for solutions to stabilize the situation in the region.
How serious are his intentions and, most importantly, does he have political will and are there objective conditions for him to fulfill his campaign promises? This is discussed by the author, director of the European Center for Democracy Development Valery Engel, PhD.
GEORGIAN POLITICS AND THE LACK OF FREEDOM: FROM ONE COSMETIC CHANGE TO THE NEXT
The current Georgian president, Salome Zurabishvili, continues the politics of the predecessor Georgi Margvelashvili and his Georgian Dream Party. According to Bloomberg, she was elected to continue the policies of the old guard, after a rancorous vote that triggered allegations of election fraud from the losing candidate...
It leads to the conclusion that the political situation will not change in Georgia and the current president and her government has no intention of changing the authorities’ attitude toward those who were mistreated before the new elections in November 2018. In fact, the regime has many tools to shut the opponents up. The entire state apparatus is designed to protect the interests of the government and is managed by corrupt politicians. Those who raise their voices are dismissed from their positions, harassed by police and put in prisons without due process. The regime sees a threat in any voice of criticism and any leak of information. It showed its brutal nature in the crackdown on peaceful demonstrations and in cases of those who criticized the government from inside, confirming the fact that the government in Georgia remains repressive, corrupt and authoritarian.
POLITICAL SITUATION IN ARMENIA
Igor Kotler, President and Executive Director of the Museum of Human Rights, Freedom, and Tolerance, Visiting Senior Research Fellow and Head of the US-Russia-Former Soviet Union Dialogue Project at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at the Rutgers University (USA).
Zelensky struggles to contain Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Problem
Militiamen of Ukraine's nationalist movement are espousing white supremacist views. This is one of the challenges Ukrainian President Zelensky is facing.
Putin’s Amendments To Russia’s Constitution Sparks Debate About Russian Nationalism
Amendments expanding Putin's power and language about the "state-forming role" of the Russian national majority, raises ethno-nationalism concerns.
