‘Muslims in EU ready to mingle with other faiths’ New survey

Vienna, Sept. 21: A survey of Muslims in 15 European Union countries finds most are willing to embrace nonMuslims, but they often feel rebuffed by the majority populations of the places they live.

The findings released Thursday by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights reflect the views of 10,527 Muslim immigrants and children of immigrants who were interviewed between October 2015 and July 2016.

Nine out of 10 of those surveyed reported having non-Muslim friends and 92 percent said they tended to feel comfortable with neighbours of a different religious background. But more than half — 53 percent — said they had felt discriminated against when they looked for housing because of their names.

On the employment front, 35 percent of the women who had looked for work felt discriminated against because of their clothing, compared to 4 percent for men.

The people surveyed were over age 16 and had been living for at least a year in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Sweden, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.

Nearly half of the respondents did not find interfaith marriage objectionable, with 48 percent reporting they would feel ‘totally comfortable’ with a family member marrying a non-Muslim.

While 17 percent said they would feel uncomfortable in that situation, the authors of the report summarising the survey results said that compares with 30 percent of nonMuslims who said they would be uncomfortable if their child had a romantic relationship with a Muslim.

Outreach is often met with rejection and hostility. At the time of their survey interviews, 27 percent of respondents said they had experienced harassment because of their Muslim backgrounds during the previous 12 months.