RACIST VIOLENCE IN 15 EU MEMBER STATES - Cospe

RACIST VIOLENCE IN 15 EU MEMBER STATES - A Comparative Overview of Findings from the RAXEN NFP Reports 2001-2004
Foreword
Racist violence, which may take a variety of forms from verbal abuse, graffiti and
harassment to arson, vandalism, physical assault or even murder, remains
unfortunately a common and persistent problem in most Member States of the
European Union. Racist violence is distinguished from other forms of violence in
the motivation behind the behaviour. Its impact affects not only the lives of the
individual victims and their families, but inter-community relations. Racist
violence may also be transnational in its dimension, thereby affecting relations
between Member States as perpetrators of racist violence may seek to take
advantage of different standards in individual Member States to commit or support
racist acts. To be effective policy responses therefore require adequate and reliable
data both at the national and at the European level. In addition, reporting systems
should have core minimum guidelines to ensure that victims receive a similar level
of support and standard of treatment across the European Union.
However, as this report highlights there is great variation between Member States
in the data collected and in their response to this problem. Member States with the
best data collection systems have also the highest figures for racist violence and
tend to be seen as those states with the most racist incidents. This is not the case. In
order to know the true extent of racist violence and develop strategies to combat
this phenomenon data collection is of paramount importance. Therefore, the
EUMC invites those Member States who do not have an effective data collection
system in place to examine the more sophisticated systems used by the other
Member States and develop effective and systematic methods to record racist
violence.
The report highlights the reality of non-existent or ineffectual official data
collection on racist violence in many Member States. Without accurate data on the
extent and nature of racist violence, Member States are hampered in their ability to
develop effective policy responses, and accurate information on the situation of
victims of racist violence will remain unattainable. Victims of racist violence run
the risk of becoming or remaining invisible in Member States with inadequate or
non-existent data collection systems.
This report has been produced to support Member States in their development of
appropriate policy responses to racist violence. It presents an analytical
comparative overview of the extent and nature of racist violence in fifteen EU
Member States. Based on official and unofficial data sources collected by the
EUMC’s RAXEN National Focal Points, the report offers an insight into the
problem of and responses to racist violence for the period 2001-2004.
The main report consists of an analysis of the general situation regarding racist
violence in each Member State. Information about official and unofficial data
collection mechanisms on racist violence is presented for each Member State in
turn, and quantitative data are offered where this was made available to the
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