ISLAMOPHOBIA REPORT

EUROPEAN ISLAMOPHOBIA REPORT 2015
on the Greek context. After these attacks the rise of Islamophobic discourse was obvious
in the media and in other fields (e.g. among politicians and Church figures), a
fact that is highlighted in this report. Especially the attack in November was linked
to the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ since, as it was argued, some of the suicide bombers
entered France through Greece as Syrian refugees or had travelled to Greece in the
past before the attacks. This interconnection gave rise to various voices asking for the
country’s protection from the thousands of migrants and refugees that are Muslims
in their vast majority, implying that terrorist attacks are possible in the future in the
case that some of them were to remain in Greece.
DISCUSSION OF ISLAMOPHOBIC INCIDENTS
AND DISCURSIVE EVENTS
Employment
There have not been any reports of Islamophobic attitudes in the field of employment
in Greece. Muslims themselves mentioned in the interviews conducted
for this report that they don’t face such issues in their workplace. The only issues
raised are related to the lack of flexibility from the part of their employers regarding
the exercise of their religious duties, namely prayer and especially the Friday
prayer. It is highly possible that discriminations in the workplace are mostly related
with the migrant identity first and foremost and secondly, if any, with the
religious identity of the person involved.
Education
Education is also a field where no data is available since the Ministry of Education
lacks an observatory authority on issues related to religious discrimination in
schools. Sporadic references are made about verbal disputes among students of
different religions, but again no specific data is available and no conclusions can be
drawn. Though the Orthodox religion has a central and dominant place in Greek
schools including the curriculum, Islam has a separate, albeit marginal, place in
school religious textbooks and generally is presented in an objective way. However,
Islam receives negative connotations when it comes to history textbooks, since it is
directly related with the Ottoman past and the Greek-Turkish relations, and this
was evident especially in the past. 8
Politics
Islamophobia has played a crucial role in the political domain in 2015 and is linked
to two critical issues that are still causing ferocious debates in the Greek public
8. Loris Koullapis, “The presentation of the period 1071-1923 in Greek and Turkish textbooks between 1950-
2000”, Internationale Schulbuchforschung, Das Osmanische Reich im Schulbuch/The Ottoman Empire in Textbooks 24
(3) (2002): 279-304.
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