Zackery Martel, Citizen Warrior, February 4, 2015

FRANCE: Several polls show that more than 70% of the French think Islam is incompatible with democracy and Western civilization. Those polls predate the Charlie Hebdo attack (source).

AUSTRALIA: One in four Australians holds a negative attitude towards Muslims, a national survey has found. It found people were five times more likely to hold negative attitudes towards Muslims than any other religious group. “What we’re finding is negativity towards Muslims is five times higher than towards Christians and Buddhists, so there’s quite a significant issue there,” said Professor Markus (source).

AUSTRIA: A new survey carried out in December 2014 and published January 2015 by Der Standard newspaper shows that 51 percent of the respondents believe that Islam is a threat to Austrian society (source).



BRITAIN: More than a quarter of young adults in Britain mistrust Muslims, a BBC survey shows. Some 27% of the thousand 18 to 24-year-olds questioned said they did not trust them, while fewer than three in 10 (29%) thought Muslims were doing enough to tackle extremism in their communities. A similar proportion of the young people polled (28%) said the country would be better off with fewer Muslims and almost half (44%) felt Muslims did not share the same values as everyone else (source).

GERMANY: A majority of Germans have rejected former President Christian Wulff’s famous statement that “Islam is now also a part of Germany”, with 52 percent against the idea (source).

CZECH REPUBLIC: About two-thirds of Czechs who have used the European election calculator EUvox consider Islam a threat to Czech society, according to an analysis of the results carried out by the Academy of Sciences Sociological Institute, released today. The institute assessed the opinions of 18,000 Czechs (source).

NETHERLANDS: Half of all Dutch people agree with Geert Wilders’ opinion that there should be fewer Moroccans in the country. De Hond polled 2500 people, 43 percent of whom expressed that they would rather there be fewer Moroccan people in the Netherlands. Only 3 percent of the people want there to be more Moroccans (source).

DENMARK: A Gallup poll shows most Danes think too many concessions are made for the minority. The public debates over banned Christmas trees, halal meat at schools and cashiers wearing headscarves appear to have made the Danish population more wary about giving their Muslim neighbors cultural concessions (source).

UNITED STATES: A Zogby Analytics poll found a growing number of Americans doubt that Muslim-Americans would be able to perform in a government post without their religion affecting their work. Forty-two percent of respondents felt that Muslim-Americans would be influenced by religion (source).

CANADA: Polls by Angus Reid, a public opinion research firm, show a steady increase in anti-Muslim sentiment since 2009, higher than any of the other major religions. Last year, 54 percent of English-speaking Canadians viewed Islam unfavorably, a feeling that stands even higher, at 69 percent, in the country’s French-speaking region, Quebec (source).

ITALY: At least half of those surveyed in Italy say they have a negative opinion of the Muslims who live in their country (source).

GREECE: Fifty-three percent of those surveyed in Greece have a negative opinion of the Muslims who live in their country (source).

SCOTLAND: A school in Glasgow, Scotland asked pupils to say which which words came to mind when people talked about Muslims. Their responses included “terrorist,” “oppressed,” “a threat” and “scary” (source).

BRITAIN: More than half the British public think that Muslim women SHOULD NOT be allowed to wear the niqab in public. An opinion poll for Channel 4 found that 56% of respondents said they opposed the wearing of the full face-veil, while 55% said they would support a national ban, similar to legislation that was passed in France in 2010. The poll found that three-quarters (76%) said they were unsure of how to relate to women wearing the full face veil, while more than half (56%) thought it was demeaning to women who wear it (source).

GERMANY: The Bertelsman Foundation think tank survey looked at the perception of Islam in Germany from the eyes of Muslims and non-Muslims. Of the non-Muslims surveyed, 57 percent thought that Islam was threatening or very threatening to German society. The survey was carried out in November, before the massacre of journalists in Paris (source). According to a study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 56 percent of Germans consider Islam to be an “archaic religion, incapable of fitting into modern life” and many believe religious freedom for Muslims should be “substantially restricted” (source).

UNITED STATES: A Pew Research Center survey found that 82% of American Republicans are “very concerned” about the rise of Islamic extremism in the world, compared with 60% of political independents and 51% of Democrats. Similarly, two-thirds of Republicans (67%) say that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers, compared with 47% of independents and 42% of Democrats (source).