Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 14 October 2015 - Brussels

Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hate speech in Europe (debate)

  Afzal Khan (S&D). – Madam President, can I first of all say that I welcome this debate. I would like to thank Claude Moraes for all the work he does, day in day out, including at the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs hearing held in June, which he put a lot of effort into. I would also like to thank the Vice-President for arranging the first Colloquium on Fundamental Rights, which dealt with this particular issue. I attended that and saw how useful it was.

It is quite clear that the impact that this discrimination is having on both Muslims and the Jewish community is the same. Day in and day out, they experience discrimination in all sorts of different ways. The internet and social media do not help. What we need to do is to ensure that we have concrete follow—up to these hearings and debates. We need to make sure that the Member States have actually adopted the EU equal treatment directives and also we need to harmonise...

(The President cut off the speaker)