CORDOBA, June 9: Discrimination against Muslims is becoming the main human rights challenge in Europe since the September 11 attacks and many governments are neglecting the problem, delegates told a conference on Thursday.

Violence by a small minority of militants and the West’s ‘war on terrorism’ have fuelled bias against Muslims, they told a meeting held in the southern Spanish city of Cordoba by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Jewish groups at the conference expressed concern that discussion of anti-Muslim bias — the first time the OSCE has tackled the issue — might divert attention from anti-Semitism, which experts say is also on the rise in Europe.

A similar conference of the 55-nation OSCE in Berlin last year vowed to fight resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe and added discrimination against Muslims, Christians and other believers to its list of concerns.

“Anti-Semitism has been combated by all European countries in a very strong way. This is a very positive thing, but in this combat against anti-Semitism they are neglecting the importance of Islamophobia,” Doudou Diene, the United Nations’ Rapporteur on Racism and Xenophobia, told Reuters.

“Islamophobia is now becoming the central challenge of European countries in the field of discrimination and racism.”

“Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are two sides of the same coin,” said Abduljalil Sajid, adviser to the Commission on British Muslims. “But Islamophobia has replaced anti-Semitism as the new sharp end of racist issues in the world wherever you go.”

With more than 20 million Muslims living in Europe, Islam is the second religion in many countries. Reports of anti-Muslim violence and attacks on mosques have multiplied in the wake of the September 2001 attacks on the United States by Al Qaeda.—Reuters