COMPLAINTS
The campaign’s complaints about and reporting of anti-religious hate speech in traditional and new media are detailed here.
MDI COMPLAINS TO PAYPAL ABOUT HOSTING FAR-RIGHT FIGURE KATIE HOPKINS
Get The Trolls Out! partner MDI (Media Diversity Institute) complained to PayPal after British media personality Katie Hopkins released a propaganda movie called “Homelands” in June. The film promotes anti-Muslim and xenophobic ideas, and pits the Jewish and Muslim communities against one another.
'CONSERVATIVE' GREEK DAILY BLAMES ISLAM FOR THE SRI LANKA ATTACKS
Following the Sri Lanka attacks on 21st of April, the Greek daily Dimokratia published a column stating its official position on these attacks the next day. The column targets Islam, claiming it is a "violent faith" which is "incompatible with democratic values and gender equality".
THE DAILY MAIL WRONGLY CLAIMS THAT MOHAMMED IS THE MOST POPULAR NAME IN BERLIN
The Daily Mail failed to recognise the Islamophobia and the inaccuracies in one of its articles, after the Media Diversity Institute (MDI) filed a complaint. The article, published on Mail Online on 3 May 2019, claimed that “Mohammed was the most popular first name for boys born in Berlin in 2018”, but a closer look at the results of the Society for the German Language (GfdS) study revealed that this is not accurate.
FAR-RIGHT FRENCH POLEMICIST SPREADS XENOPHOBIC HATE SPEECH ON TWITTER
French GTTO partner LICRA is planning on taking legal action against Renaud Camus based on a recent post on Twitter in which he shared extremely hateful xenophobic sentiments.
THE ARREST WARRANT AGAINST ALAIN SORAL SHOULD BE URGENTLY CARRIED OUT
Press Release of Anti-Racist Associations The undersigned anti-racist associations demand that the Prosecutor of the Republic urgently carry out the arrest warrant issued against Alain Soral on 15 April 2019 for publicly denying the Holocaust.
GREECE’S ELEFTHERI ORA CALLS THE GREEK PRESIDENT “THE TRAITOR IN… A KIPPAH”
On 28th January 2019, the extreme-right Greek newspaper Eleftheri Ora published a hate-filled front page accusing Prokopis Pavlopoulos, veteran centrist politician and current President of the Hellenic Republic, of being a “traitor in… a kippah.” The newspaper makes this accusation based on the president’s soft stand on the Prespa Agreement that put an end to the long-running dispute between Greece and Macedonia over the latter’s name.
FLEMISH OPINION SITE EQUATES ISLAM WITH TERRORISM
The European Union of Jewish Students wrote a complaint to Doorbraak, an opinion website, for the publication of an article explicitly blaming Islam for being a violent religion that poses security threats to Belgian society.
FRENCH DRIVING TEST REVISION PLATFORM USES ANTISEMITISM AS MARKETING STRATEGY
Code Express, a French online platform that offers driving licence courses, has refused to remove an antisemitic photo to promote their discounts, after GTTO partner in France, Licra, sent a complaint.
BELGIAN NEWS OUTLET LA LIBRE FOSTERS CATEGORISATION OF “GOOD AND BAD MUSLIMS”
A complaint by EFOMW requesting the Belgian news outlet La Libre to avoid dangerous simplifications when reporting on Muslims has been ignored by the editors. An opinion piece published in March has made widespread generalisations about what classifies as good Muslims and bad Muslims, creating misunderstandings that could lead to discrimination against those that the author sweepingly labels in a negative way.
AN ONLINE FRENCH-ENGLISH DICTIONARY, REVERSO LISTS EXTREMELY ANTI-SEMITICS TRANSLATIONS
Reverso is a free online French-English dictionary that claims to help its users gain a native-like understanding of these languages. To do this, Reverso provides examples of contextual sentence-use for each word in question. Shockingly, the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism (LICRA), GTTO partner in France, found that Reverso would often include violently Antisemitic examples...
THE EUROPEAN FORUM OF MUSLIM WOMEN DENOUNCE MEDIA COMPLICITY IN ‘THE DECATHLON CASE'
Following a campaign of vitriol and threats, Decathlon (a multinational sportswear retailer) announced their decision to remove running hijabs from their stores and website in France. The European Forum of Muslim Women (EFOMW), GTTO-partner in France, published an open letter denouncing social media and conventional publications for stigmatising Muslim women through sensationalist and hysterical coverage of the headscarf.
#RACISMINTHEPRESS: AN OPEN LETTER
In one entire year, IPSO received 8000 discrimination complaints - but upheld only one. In a time of increasing antisemitism, Islamophobia and overall racist and discriminatory acts across the United Kingdom, Europe and around the world, we find this lack of oversight over this kind of reporting to be both troubling, and telling. Today, Media Diversity Institute and Hacked Off are calling on the Independent Press Standards Organisation to end this #RacismInThePress, and start taking complaints of racism and discrimination more seriously. Please circulate their letter using the hashtag #RacismInThePress. You can read the full open letter on the Media Diversified's website, and you can sign the petition here! Update from MDI: MDI has received more than one hundred signatures from…
BELGIAN NEWS OUTLET 7SUR7 GIVES PLATFORM TO A NAZI MAN AND NAZI SYMBOLS
A complaint by EFOMW requesting the Belgian news outlet 7sur7 remove photos with Nazi insignias from an article is ignored by the editors. The article appeared on 7sur7 provided a platform for Nazi symbols and to the opinion of a man who defines himself as a Hitler fan.
AUSTRIAN MINISTER DOG-WHISTLES ISLAMOPHOBIA AT OSCE CONFERENCE
The EUJS has reacted to an Islamophobic statement by the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karin Kneissl. At the opening conference of the Slovakian Chairmanship of the OSCE in February, which focused on the topic of antisemitism, Karin Kneissl, foreign minister in Austria's right wing, nationalist coalition government, stated that if we speak of antisemitism we should look to Muslims and immigrants.
FLEMISH NEWS SITE PUBLISHES CRIME STORIES ASSUMING FOREIGN NATIONALITY OF PERPETRATORS
A complaint by EUJS to a reporter at the outlet Sceptr requesting him to stop purposely framing migrants as criminals has been left without any answers. Sceptr, a nationalist alternative media site covering news in Belgium and the Netherlands, regularly handpicks articles on crimes allegedly committed by migrants, even when there is no evidence that the perpetrators are foreigners.