Despite European Muslims’ confidence in the political and justice systems in Europe and its member states, our examination of criminal justice data in Chapter Three highlighted the religious minority's concerns about crime victimization. More than one data source indicated that Muslims were more worried than non-Muslims about the possibility of victimization and about antisocial behaviour in their neighbourhoods. Data on discrimination provided in this chapter underscore the picture of Muslims’ sense of relative unease in their European homes.

In its report, Racist Violence in 15 Member States, the EUMC (European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia) (2005a) provides examples of anti-foreigner violence and reviews single state studies then available regarding discrimination against ethnic groups likely to be Muslim. Due to the lack of data at the time, EUMC was not able to provide a systematic analysis of discrimination against Muslims in Europe. Joachim Brüß (2008) investigated Muslims’ perceptions of discrimination in samples (drawn in 2004) of Turkish Muslims in Berlin, Bangladeshi Muslims in London, and Moroccan Muslims in Madrid. (The French research contingent ‘decided not to launch the survey, as they could not define a satisfactory sampling frame for Paris because of missing information for the Muslim population’ (Brüß, 2008: 892).) Brüß (2008: 886) found that in Berlin ‘30 percent of Turkish Muslims indicated that they felt treated respectfully and in a friendly way by the receiver society … In contrast, in London 93 percent of Bangladeshi Muslims … felt respectfully treated’. In London, age differences were evident in perceptions of discrimination: young Bangladeshi Muslims saw themselves as ‘belonging to a discriminated minority … reported being stopped by the police more often … [and] felt that they were treated disrespectfully by the receiver society’ (Brüß, 2008: 886–887). Brüß’ (2008: 889) multivariate analysis suggests that disrespectful treatment and verbal attacks were key factors influencing respondents’ perceptions of being a member of a group that is discriminated against on the part of Bangladeshi Muslims in London and Turkish Muslims in Germany respectively.

Brüß discusses the implications of these results for the social mobility of Muslims in the receiver states. In his words: ‘severe and persistent forms of social exclusion can probably be tackled more thoroughly by taking Muslims’ experiences seriously … more knowledge is needed to explore … the structure and meaning of everyday interaction between Muslims and host societies across Europe’ (Brüß, 2008: 891).