Tag Archives: Europe

Age, Nationality + Migration

Europe News | Child Refugees

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At least 10,000 refugee children reported missing after arriving in Europe
  • The EU’s criminal intelligence agency has reported that the child refugees went missing after registering with state authorities, including 5,000 in Italy and 1,000 in Sweden.
  • Authorities fear the children may have fallen into the hands of human traffickers, who, according to intelligence, have begun linking their slavery networks to migrant-smuggling networks.
  • Unaccompanied minors have become a source of serious concern in the migration crisis, with the U.K. having recently pledged to accept an additional but limited number of unaccompanied children from conflict-ridden regions of North Africa and the Middle East.

Read more:
“10,000 refugee children are missing, says Europol” (The Guardian)
“UK to give sanctuary to unaccompanied refugee children” (BBC)
“Ministers offer unaccompanied child refugees in Europe limited UK help” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: Darko Vojinovic/AP, via The Guardian)

Nationality + Migration

Greece & Libya News | Migrants & Refugees

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January sees record number of migrant deaths in eastern Mediterranean
  • To date, there have been 218 deaths as migrants have crossed the Aegean Sea to reach Greek shores, a number not reached until mid-September in 2015.
  • The spike in deaths comes as the overall number of migrants and refugees attempting to reach Europe has reached its lowest point since June 2015.
  • The migration shift occurs as a changing of the guard has taken place among people-smugglers in North Africa, with the brief calm in traffic from Libya having recently given way to a fresh, more lethal round.

Read more:
“Mediterranean deaths soar as people-smugglers get crueler: IOM” (Reuters)
“Mapped: The Refugee Crisis in the Aegean Sea” (Foreign Policy)
“Protests at Greek border after more migrants drown in Aegean Sea” (AP, via The Chicago Tribune)

(Image Credit: Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Germany Feature | Refugees

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Germany’s New Growing Pains

In the wake of mass sexual assaults carried out on New Year’s Eve by a small group of Arab and other North African men in Cologne, refugees and their German supporters are having to confront difficult integration issues with the country’s now massive numbers of new residents. Migrants scramble to distance themselves from the criminal behavior of a few and turned to educational programs to tackle cultural differences in everyday life. As far-right groups continue to intimidate immigrants new and old alike, The Guardian examines the challenges facing the new immigrant community.

“There was a big hype two months ago, when it was seen to be cool and trendy to go to a refugee centre and donate old clothes, but this hysteria of joy is now turning into a hysteria of frustration. Just giving a refugee a donated jumper will not turn them into a German citizen. That needs time and both sides must approach each other with flexibility.”

The full story:
“‘If we want Germans to accept Arabs, Arabs must also learn to accept them’” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images, via The Guardian)

Health + Ability

U.K. Feature | People with Disabilities

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Bodybuilding with Disabilities

After having been born with physical or mental disabilities or suffered a life-altering injury, a small but growing group of men with disabilities in the U.K. have begun taking on a sport reluctant to create space for their inclusion: bodybuilding. The Guardian profiles a few of the competitors, who discuss their road to bodybuilding, challenges faced by the disability community, and what they hope to see as the future of the sport.

Read more:
“Pecs appeal: the rise of disabled bodybuilding” (The Guardian)
Bodybuilding and Disabilities (Facebook)

(Image Credit: Abbie Trayler-Smith/The Guardian)

Gender, Sexual + Gender Minorities

France News | Gay Men

France opens blood donation to gay men with qualifications
  • Fulfilling a campaign promise of President François Hollande, the French health ministry announced it will relax the 1983 law banning gay men from donating blood.
  • Men who have abstained from sex with other men for at least 12 months will be allowed to donate blood, while men who have not had sex with men or have had sex in the context of a monogamous relationship for four months can donate plasma.
  • Rights groups cautiously praised the development, acknowledging the continued profiling of gay men through the ongoing restrictions, which will be reviewed in 2017.

Read more:
“Ouverture progressive du don de sang aux homosexuels à partir de 2016” (Le Monde)
“France to lift ban on gay men giving blood” (AFP via Yahoo! News)
“France to Lift Ban on Gay Men Donating Blood” (The New York Times)

(Image Credit: Noah Seelam/AFP)

Ideology + Affiliation, Religion + Belief

Europe News | Saudi Dissident

Imprisoned Saudi blogger wins EU’s top human rights prize
  • Raif Badawi won the Sakharov prize for creating the secularist blog Free Saudi Liberals, which called for political reforms in the Arab world and criticized the illiberal effects of theocracy.
  • Following his arrest on charges of apostasy in 2012, Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, the first 50 of which led to injuries that required the indefinite deferral of the remainder.
  • International authorities and advocates including U.S. officials and Amnesty International have condemned Badawi’s imprisonment and called for his release.

Read more:
“Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi Awarded Top EU Human Rights Prize” (BuzzFeed News)
“Jailed Saudi blogger awarded Europe’s rights prize” (Al Jazeera)
“A look at the writings of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi – sentenced to 1,000 lashes” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: Facebook, via BuzzFeed News)

Gender, Race + Color + Ethnicity

UK News | Racial Minorities & Women

British PM announces name-blind admissions and hiring measures, new gender pay equity policies
  • PM David Cameron announced that the UK’s University and College Admissions Service (UCAS) will switch to name-blind applicant evaluation in 2017 to reduce racial bias in college admissions.
  • Numerous studies have indicated that culturally inflected differences in names significantly impact job applicants’ likelihood of being hired, with those with names traditionally from black and other ethnic minority communities receiving fewer interviews.
  • Cameron also outlined new policies to address the gender pay gap, including forcing private companies to publish bonuses, requiring large public sector organizations to publish pay data, and pushing for the elimination of all-male FTSE-350 boards.

Read more:
“Ucas to enforce ‘name-blind’ applications to tackle racial bias” (The Guardian)
“The perfect name for a job application, based on biases” (BBC)

(Image Credit: David Cheskin/PA, via the Guardian)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Sweden News | Immigrants & Minorities

Deadly attack on Swedish school being treated as hate crime
  • The chief of police in Trollhättan reported that the man who killed a student and teacher and left two others critically injured chose his victims by skin color, attacking dark-skinned individuals.
  • Police disclosed that the assailant had no ties to official far-right groups but had neo-Nazi sympathies, posting Nazi-sympathist videos to social media.
  • Trollhättan has a history of predominant segregation and hate crimes, and the Kronan school, with its high proportion of students of immigrant background, was a vulnerable target.

Read more:
“Sweden school attack: police treat killing of pupil and teacher as racist hate crime” (The Guardian)
“Police in Sweden: Deadly school attack a racist hate crime” (AP via Yahoo! News)
“Sweden school killings: Attacker ‘had racist motives’” (BBC)

(Image Credit: EPA, via BBC)

Nationality + Migration

Sweden News | Refugees

Sweden sees rash of arson attacks against refugee facilities
  • A fire at a retirement home in Oderljunga marked as a potential site for refugee accommodation was the latest in a string of arson attacks across the country.
  • More than a dozen such fires have been reported across the country over the last seven months, with police indicating all have been arson.
  • The attacks come as Sweden prepares to accept up to 190,000 asylum seekers, second only to Germany in Europe.

Read more:
“Fresh arson fears as refugee home burns” (The Local)
“Arson Attacks at Asylum Homes Raise Fears in Tolerant Sweden” (AP via ABC News)
“Arsonists attack another migrant centre in Sweden” (AFP via Yahoo! News)

(Image Credit: Adam Ihse/AFP, via Yahoo! News)

Class + Socioeconomics, Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

France Feature | Working Class, Immigrants & Racial Minorities

Estates of Emergency

France’s notorious housing estates–akin to housing projects in the U.S.–have long existed as symbols of an unintegrated France. Though President François Hollande has pledged to address the long-standing segregation that divides Paris’s poor banlieues from its more affluent city center, rampant unemployment, limited educational opportunities, crime, and stigmatization continue largely unchecked. The Guardian reflects on conditions in Paris’s most notorious estates a decade after riots forced what one banlieue mayor has called “social and territorial apartheid” into the national consciousness.

Read more:
“‘Nothing’s changed’: 10 years after French riots, banlieues remain in crisis” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: Ed Alcock/The Guardian)

Religion + Belief

UK News | Muslims

British government’s new counter-extremism strategy draws criticism from Muslim civic leaders
  • PM David Cameron and Home Secretary Teresa May released the UK’s new counter-extremism strategy, with measures including studying discrepancies between Sharia and British law, new broadcast regulations, increased movement restrictions on suspected extremists, and pressuring internet service providers to remove extremist material.
  • The strategy also involves a wide-scale review of the public, non-profit, and for-profit sectors to suss out “infiltrators” who attempt to gain access to platforms to disseminate extremist ideologies.
  • While officials allege the new measures target all forms of extremism, Muslim civil groups including the Muslim Council of Britain criticized them as poorly formulated and discriminatory, arguing they alienate the Muslim community and tip over into “McCarthyist” territory.

Read more:
“Counter-extremism: May targets ‘all those who spread hate’” (BBC)
“Government launches hunt for extremists across public sector” (The Guardian)
“Muslims condemn Britain’s plans to combat extremism” (Reuters)
“‘One Nation Counter-Extremism Strategy’ Risks Further Undermining Fight Against Terrorism” (Muslim Council of Britain)

(Image Credit: Luke MacGregor/Reuters)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Bosnia and Herzegovina & Serbia News | Bosnian Muslims & Serbs

New Bosnian War indictments continue search for justice decades after historic ethnic conflict in the Balkans
  • After having been arrested on warrant from Serbia, Bosnian Muslim former commander Naser Oric pleaded not guilty to the murder of three Serb prisoners in 1992.
  • Meanwhile, Djordje Ristanic, a Bosnian Serb official from the war, was indicted for war crimes including the murder, torture, and robbery of hundreds of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
  • Ongoing legal efforts at both the international and national level to prosecute war crimes from the Bosnian War–including genocide, ethnic cleansing, and persecution–have led to recent arrest and convictions of both Bosnian Serbs and Muslims (Bosniaks).

Read more:
“Bosnian Muslim ex-commander denies killings of Serbs near Srebrenica” (Reuters)
“Serb charged over wartime crimes against hundreds in Bosnian town” (Reuters)

(Image Credit: Zoran Lesic/Reuters/Pool)

Race + Color + Ethnicity

Sweden News | Black Swedes

UN report finds increasing “Afrophobia” and discrimination against African-Swedes
  • A new UN report countered Sweden’s diversity-friendly image with data on discrimination faced by African-Swedes, who make up 2% of Sweden’s 9.6 million people.
  • In addition to discrimination in housing and employment, a national crime study found that hate crimes against people of African descent increased by more than 40% between 2008 and 2014, with a fifth of last year’s incidents involving violence.
  • Sweden has come under fire for several measures anti-racism advocates argue undermine their work, including removing the word “race” from the country’s Discrimination Act and the country’s failure to own up to its role in the transatlantic slave trade.

Read more:
“Sweden’s liberal reputation tarnished as race attacks rise” (The Guardian)
“Sweden’s liberal image is a mirage that hides a very ugly problem” (Quartz)
“Afrophobic hate crimes on the rise in Sweden” (The Local)

(Image Credit: Anders Wiklund/AFP/Getty Images, via The Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation

Montenegro News | Dissidents

Violent clash between police and demonstrators at opposition rally in Montenegrin capital leads to calls for investigation
  • Fifteen demonstrators were detained during a demonstration in Podgorica organized by the Democratic Front, Montenegro’s main opposition bloc.
  • After protesters reportedly tried to break through police barriers and began hurling bottles, police began using tear gas and beating demonstrators.
  • Several hundred had rallied after police dismantled the tents set up by the Democratic Front three weeks ago following large protests calling for the resignation of PM Milo Djukanovic’s government.

Read more:
“Montenegro to investigate police use of force at anti-government protests” (Reuters)
“Montenegro Police Break up Anti-Government Protest” (AP via ABC News)
“Thousands Protest Against Government In Montenegro” (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

(Image Credit: Stevo Vasiljevic/Reuters)

Sexual + Gender Minorities

France News | Intersex

French court rules in favor of establishing third gender option for intersex individual
  • A French court has for the first time allowed for the establishment of a third gender option for an individual’s legal status, ruling in favor of a 64-year-old intersex individual to change their status from male to “neutral gender.”
  • The judge ruled that the gender assigned to the individual at birth was “pure fiction” and that the creation of a third option was not the recognition of a third gender, but of the impossibility of ascribing binary gender to individuals who present with both male and female sexual characteristics.
  • A 2011 legal memorandum outlined administrative guidelines for intersex newborns, allowing for a one- to two-year deferral of gender assignment on a newborn’s birth certificate if the child presents as intersex, while Europe’s main human rights authority recently spoke out against surgical gender assignment for intersex newborns.

Read more:
“Une personne de «sexe neutre» reconnue par l’état civil” (20 minutes, in French)
“Le sexe « neutre » reconnu pour la première fois en France” (Le Monde, in French)
“French court recognises third gender for first time” (France24)

(Image Credit: Luca Sartoni, via Le Monde)