Reacting to the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola’s, condemnation of racist chants from members of parliament Dinushika Dissanayake, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Europe said:
“The ugly scenes of Members of the European Parliament chanting ‘send them back’ last month is the product of long-standing racism and xenophobia being tolerated and emboldened both inside and outside the European Parliament. This vitriol should have no place in society, let alone expressed so openly in a public institution.
“President Metsola is right to condemn the actions of these members whose rhetoric risks inciting discrimination against racialized people, but condemnation alone is not enough. This must be a moment of reckoning for the Parliament to confront the persistent systemic racism across Europe, with increasingly overt forms of racism re-emerging in public discourse.
“For years, European political leaders have scapegoated migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to deflect attention from their own failures to deal with the consequences of cuts to public services, the housing crisis and the rising cost of living.
“Now the mask has slipped entirely. The chants lay bare the racism and xenophobia that underpins the EU’s Return Regulation – the law that will vastly expand the EU’s detention and deportation of undocumented people, disproportionately harming racialized people.
“As the European Union prepares its harshest assault on migrants’ rights in recent memory, these scenes are a warning of what lies ahead if we fail to change course. Capitulation to anti-rights groups must end here. Racism and xenophobia cannot become the voice of the European Parliament.
“With its bloodied history of colonialism, slavery, genocide and the Holocaust, and their legacies haunting its past and present, Europe knows only too well the consequences of normalized discrimination against marginalized people.”
Background
In June, scores of Members of the European Parliament celebrated the vote on the Return Regulation, aimed at increasing deportations, with chants of ‘send them back’, leading other lawmakers to respond with cries of ‘shame on you’.
In the context of systemic racism, chanting ‘send them back’ is based on the racist prejudice that migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, who are mostly racialized people in the context of Europe, do not belong in the EU and should be excluded because of their national origin, race, or ethnicity.
Amnesty International as well as over 250 civil society organizations unequivocally called for the rejection of this Regulation. The law is cruel, punitive and driven by detention, deportation and externalization. It will particularly harm racialized people and will result in more people being pushed into legal limbo and dangerous conditions.
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