The groundbreaking report, Everyday Fears: A Survey of Violent Hate Crimes in Europe and North America, will be released to coincide with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Conference on Antisemitism and Other Forms of Intolerance to be held in Cordoba, Spain on June 8-9. The U.S. Delegation to the Conference will be led by Governor George E. Pataki of New York.
The report is the first in-depth analysis of the alarming increase in antisemitic, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate crimes in the 55 member states of the OSCE. It also underscores a disturbing lack of response to hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation, gender, and disability.
“No one has ever done a report like this covering such a wide range of violent hate crimes across so many countries”, notes Michael McClintock, Director of Program at Human Rights First. “We found a disturbing new wave of violent anti-immigrant crimes across Europe reflecting anti-immigrant policies and practices established by governments.”
Human Rights First’s report reveals the pervasive, everyday-nature of hate crimes and provides an evaluation of legislation and means of data collection on hate crimes in each country. Members of the OSCE include the United States, Canada, all members of the Council of Europe, and five Central Asian states.
“In France violent antisemitic offenses rose 63 percent from 2003 to 2004,” said McClintock. “We can identify these levels of increasing violence because there is a specialized anti-discrimination body set up by the government to collect the data. Most countries aren’t even collecting the data.”
Human Rights First will be attending the OSCE Conference in Cordoba as part of a broad-based coalition group of American NGOs, under the umbrella of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The Leadership Conference is the oldest, largest, and most diverse coalition of civil rights and human rights organizations in the United States, with 185 member organizations.
The full report is being made available at this link:
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/discrimination/pdf/everyday-fears-080805.pdf
Detailed country reports are included in the full text for Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Russia, the United States, and other OSCE member states.
Executive Summary:
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/discrimination/pdf/everyday-fears-exec-sum-060105.pdf
Fact Sheet:
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/discrimination/fact_sheet-060105.htm
