The recent Ipsos survey Perils of Perception showed that most countries believe their population is much more Muslim than it actually is. But the Poles emerge as the unquestionable leader in these overestimations. Although Muslims make up only around 35,000 of a 38 million population, Poles believe that their number is actually 2.6 million, which would make the Polish Muslim population one of the largest in the European Union after France, Germany and the UK.
Furthermore, Poles believe that the number of Muslims in the country will grow to up to 13% by 2020. If this were to happen the Muslim population in Poland would have surpassed not only that of Italy, Spain and the Netherlands but even the British which has grown dynamically in the last decade. [...]
Politicians have frequently invoked Islamophobic rhetoric, empowering far-right groups and contributing to a climate where not only Islamophobia, but also anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and other expressions of hate seem permissible. This in turn empowered far-right groups that organised several anti-refugee and anti-Muslim demonstrations in 2015 in cities that are home to Muslim minorities such as Białystok. Wrocław, Gdańsk and Kraków. [...]
According to Association Never Again (Nigdy Wiecej) the numbers of homophobic, racist or xenophobic incidents per month drastically shot up from around 20 a month to 20 a week. In recent years we have also observed a particular focus with Muslim women at the centre of both far-right and liberal anti-Muslim agendas.
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