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Muslims (CRI (2000) 21) and General Policy Recommendation No. 7 on national legislation to combat racism and racial discrimination (CRI (2003) 8) 21.
At the national level, data from the Crown Prosecution Service's (CPS) racist incident monitoring reports highlighted how in the aftermath of 7/7, “there was an upsurge in 'faith hate' incidents recorded by the London Metropolitan Police Service” 22. Whilst these appeared to return to normal levels within a few weeks, the report noted how the Forum Against Islamophobia & Racism (FAIR) recorded in the period 2004-2005 more than 50 cases of violence against Muslim property - including places of worship - and over 100 cases of verbal threats and abusive behaviour. Despite this, the report warned that the true extent and nature of Islamophobia remains unknown not least because such incidents remain severely underreported and under-documented23.
In the second report, Perceptions of discrimination and Islamophobia: Voices from members of Muslim communities in the European Union, the impact of 9/11 was again significant. Focusing on the British setting, many Muslims felt that they had been placed under “intense scrutiny” and that there had been an “increase in open incidents of everyday hostility” 24. Most agreed that the situation had deteriorated over the last five years. Many felt that Islamophobia, discrimination, and socio-economic marginalisation were significant factors in generating disaffection and alienation and that this had been made worse by the overwhelmingly negative representation of Muslims and Islam in the media. Key to this was the way that the media represented Islam as “monolithic, authoritarian and oppressive towards women” 25.
21
ibid, 12-13. ibid, 17. 23 ibid, 8. 24 European Monitoring Centre on Racism & Xenophobia Perceptions of discrimination and Islamophobia: Voices from members of Muslim communities in the European Union (Vienna: EUMC, 2007) 7. 25 ibid, 8. 22