CLAIM Demands Binding Measures Against Anti-Muslim Racism

On 20 March 2025, the CLAIM Allianz report­ed that it, togeth­er with over 50 civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions, was urg­ing the new Ger­man fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to pri­or­i­tize com­bat­ing anti-Mus­lim racism. The arti­cle begins:

On behalf of more than 50 civ­il soci­ety organizations—including human rights and advi­so­ry orga­ni­za­tions, as well as spon­sors of child and youth welfare—CLAIM appeals to the new fed­er­al gov­ern­ment: Com­bat­ing anti-Mus­lim racism must final­ly become a pri­or­i­ty. With 10 con­crete demands, CLAIM for­mu­lates clear expec­ta­tions for the pro­tec­tion of those affect­ed and for com­bat­ing anti-Mus­lim racism. “We are doc­u­ment­ing an alarm­ing increase in dis­crim­i­na­tion, attacks, and even vio­lence against Mus­lims and those per­ceived as Mus­lim. This not only has seri­ous con­se­quences for those affect­ed but also impacts all of us,” says Rima Hanano, Head of CLAIM. “The new fed­er­al gov­ern­ment must act now to pro­tect those affect­ed and pre­vent fur­ther soci­etal divi­sion.” The EU Agency for Fun­da­men­tal Rights (FRA) recent­ly iden­ti­fied an increase in anti-Mus­lim racism. In Ger­many, 68% of Mus­lims report expe­ri­enc­ing discrimination—placing Ger­many sec­ond in Europe. A study pub­lished today by DeZ­IM reached a sim­i­lar con­clu­sion: Attacks, ver­bal assaults, and dis­crim­i­na­tion based on skin col­or, ori­gin, or reli­gion are every­day expe­ri­ences in Germany—across all areas of soci­ety. Already for the year 2023, CLAIM doc­u­ment­ed more than dou­ble the num­ber of anti-Mus­lim attacks and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry inci­dents nation­wide com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year (2022: 898, 2023: 1,926). In 2024, 1,554 anti-Islam­ic crimes have been doc­u­ment­ed by the police so far—a new, grim peak in hate crime sta­tis­tics (2023: 1,464). The actu­al num­ber is sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er due to under­re­port­ing. [Trans­lat­ed from Ger­man original.]

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Key Points:

• Over 50 civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions urged the new Ger­man fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to pri­or­i­tize com­bat­ing anti-Mus­lim racism.
• Accord­ing to CLAIM, the EU Agency for Fun­da­men­tal Rights and DeZ­IM had report­ed an increase in anti-Mus­lim dis­crim­i­na­tion in Germany.
• CLAIM claimed to have doc­u­ment­ed a sig­nif­i­cant rise in anti-Mus­lim attacks and discrimination.
• The group said the Ger­man Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion’s trust in pol­i­tics was shak­en, as it did not feel ade­quate­ly pro­tect­ed or represented.

CLAIM — Alliance Against Islamo­phobia and Anti-Mus­lim Hate is an umbrel­la net­work of over 50 civ­il soci­ety and Mus­lim advo­ca­cy groups in Ger­many work­ing against “Islam­o­pho­bic, anti-Mus­lim and racist ten­den­cies.” It was found­ed in 2018 and oper­ates under TEILSEIEND, a Mus­lim advo­ca­cy and com­mu­ni­ty asso­ci­a­tion. Sev­er­al part­ner orga­ni­za­tions in the CLAIM net­work have ties to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) in Ger­many, includ­ing JUMA and the Mus­lim­is­che Jugend Deutsch­lands. Since its found­ing, the CLAIM net­work has exten­sive­ly lob­bied for polit­i­cal influ­ence in supra­na­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive bod­ies, reg­u­lar­ly meet­ing with high-lev­el EU offi­cials and nation­al gov­ern­ment lead­ers. In Sep­tem­ber 2020, the Ger­man Inte­ri­or Min­istry answered CLAIM calls to intro­duce an inde­pen­dent expert group on anti-Mus­lim hatred that fea­tured two CLAIM expert com­mit­tee members.

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