The poll showed that Muslims are viewed more positively in Britain

CAIRO, December 19 (IslamOnline.net) – A slim majority of Europeans believe the Muslim communities in Europe are seen in a bad light, a survey revealed on Sunday, December 19.

Asked “Do you think nowadays there is a lot of, a little of, or no disapproval of Muslims living in European society”, 52% of the respondents cited a large-scale disapproval of the estimated 13 million Muslims in Europe, Britain’s The Times Online newspaper reported.

The survey, conducted by German research institute GfK Worldwide and The Wall Street Journal, interviewed 1,000 people in 19 European countries in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the Madrid bombings.

Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark emerged with highest disapproval rates of Muslims, with 75, 72 and 67 percent of respondents in the three countries respectively showing disapproval of Muslims.

Britain is viewed as one of the tolerant European countries. Just 39% of those interviewed said they believed that a significant number of people were opposed to Muslims.

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, deputy director of the Leicester-based Islamic Foundation, said Muslims are viewed in Britain more positively than other European countries.

“We feel we are much better treated here than anywhere else — the society as a whole is much fairer than the other European countries,” he told the British paper.

Muslims in major cities across the United Kingdom launched on November 22, the tenth Islam Awareness Week (IAW) with activities and seminars highlighting their contributions to the British society.

Jonathan Birt, the son of Lord Birt and Emma Clark, the granddaughter of former liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith, are only two of the 14,000 mostly-elite white Britons who have reverted to Islam.

On Muslims in other European countries, Mueen-Uddin regretted that in France Muslim students are denied wearing the hijab in public schools.

France triggered the heated controversy over hijab across Europe by adopting a bill banning hijab and religious symbols in state schools, a law dismissed by the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) as "discriminatory".

He also noted that in Germany “while the Turkish population have been living there for more than 30 years, they are still treated as guest workers and not allowed to be part of mainstream society.”

Five years ago, only 65 percent of the estimated 2.1 million Turks in Germany felt they were being treated as second-class citizens compared to 80 percent in 2004, according to a recent study by the Turkish Studies Center in the Rhein region.

Worrying Results

But Mueen-Uddin said the study, as a whole, gives cause for concern.

“Anyone who has the wellbeing of society uppermost in his mind cannot but feel deeply concerned at these findings. Being a Muslim I am worried that Europe is replacing its anti-Semitism with yet another cancer — Islamophobia,” he told the British paper.

“There is nothing worse than the feeling that you are not trusted or are viewed with suspicion by your neighbors and fellow citizens.”

Mark Hofmans of GfK Worldwide shared the same concern.

He told The Times Online that the attitudes towards Muslims “were much more negative than we expected and widespread, too.”

The Arab European League (AEL), a rights group that has offices in Belgium and the Netherlands, expressed last month concerns about the eruption of a new wave of Islamophobia and xenophobia in both countries.

“Islamophobia is also a form of anti-Semitism and on that level it is now clear that some European countries didn’t learn their lesson of history,” it said in a statement on its Web site.

Addressing the opening session of “Confronting Islamophobia: Education for Tolerance and Understanding”, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan regretted earlier in the month that “Islam's tenets are frequently distorted and taken out of context.”

Alima Boumediene Thiery, a French Muslim lawmaker, had told IslamOnline.net that misconceptions about Muslims were an obstacle to the full integration of the community into French society.