On 24 October 2021, on the occasion of the 12th General Assembly of EuroMed Rights, the following declaration was adopted by the organisation’s member and partner organisations. The declaration highlights the endemic nature, and in some places the rise, of racism and discrimination in the Euro-Mediterranean region:
Over the past decade, experts and activists from across the Euro-Mediterranean region have documented the endemic spread of racism and xenophobia throughout the region.
As members and partners of EuroMed Rights, we are worried by this phenomenon. In Europe today, nearly one in three Black people experience racist harassment according to a study done by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights. One in four feels racially discriminated against when looking for work. And one in five is subject to discrimination when looking for housing. Even when a policy or a law supposedly does not discriminate and applies to everyone equally, it may still impact on certain groups more than on others, including migrants, people perceived to be of Black or North African descent, and other ethnic minorities.
In the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region, the historic blend of cultures and the present cultural diversity do not prevent racist behaviours from persisting. It is observed in discriminatory legislative frameworks and in commonplace racist attacks, prejudices and insults expressed against members of black communities and settled migrant populations.
Racist behaviours, often exacerbated by political or media discourse, contribute to the general feeling of division and inequality felt across the Euro-Mediterranean region. By feeding on our fears, these behaviours and discourses pit us against each other and divide us.
As active civil society members in our respective countries, we say this situation is no fatality. The Euro-Mediterranean region has recently seen the emergence of a host of vibrant and multi-faceted anti-racist movements and initiatives. Many of these initiatives seem to combine local anti-racist activism with global calls for racial justice and an end to structural racist oppression. The perhaps most telling example of this cross-fertilisation between global and local anti-racist activism is the responses to the brutal murder of George Floyd in May 2020. In the following months, tens of thousands of citizens from across the entire Euro-Mediterranean region took to the streets and to the Internet to denounce systemic racism, discrimination, and police brutality. While their slogans and expressions often echo those of the global protagonists such as the US-based Black Lives Matter movement, their requests go beyond simple expressions of solidarity.
Indeed, they call on countries in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East to engage with their own past and take the necessary legislative and practical steps to bring an end to structural racism, segregation and apartheid as in Israel/Palestine.
As a regional human rights network, EuroMed Rights is committed, in the years to come, to increase its efforts and work closely with partners across the region to combat systemic racism and discrimination under all its forms.