Wednesday 14 September 2011

Europe Seeing Dangerous Increase in Social Hostilities Relating to Religion

At a fascinating meeting of the Henry Jackson Society in a House of Commons Committee Room yesterday, Dr. Brian Grim talked about the worrying findings of his new book: The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the 21st Century (Cambridge Uni. Press, 2011).

Dr Grim highlighted the startling rate at which social hostilities relating to religion are increasing in Europe based on his research looking at the years from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Five of the 10 countries around the world that had a substantial increase in social hostilities were in Europe: Bulgaria, Denmark, Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These hostilities relate to all sorts of events which now feature commonly in the news in these countries: attacks against places of worship, violent demonstrations held by religious groups and terrorist attacks.

There can be no doubt the root of this problem in Europe is bad policy. The high rate of immigration into Europe, coupled with the high degree of movement between people in Europe is having a devastating effect upon the extent of social cohesion in various European nations.

UKIP has the right policy in this area. To curb this rise in social hostilities, we must reduce the number of immigrants coming to Britain from Europe and the wider world. This is the only sensible policy to protect minority communities and religious freedom.

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