We view March 15, the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Islamophobia, as an opportunity to assess our decade-long observations on Islamophobia in the German-speaking countries of Europe (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). Over the past decade, Islamophobia has evolved from a marginal phenomenon to an institutionalized feature of social and political life in German-speaking countries.

Anti-Muslim racism, driven by a security-centric governance logic that systematically frames Muslim identity as a threat, manifests today in state laws, parliamentary debates, and structural exclusions in daily life from the workplace to the education system and interactions with official authorities. During this period, a growing infrastructure of resistance against Islamophobia also emerged: civil society documentation centers, legal counseling points and monitoring projects began to make the previously invisible problem of Islamophobia visible.

Common Denominator: Institutionalized Exclusion

Over the past decade, the German-speaking heart of Europe has become a central laboratory for the institutionalization of anti-Muslim attitudes. Although Germany, Austria and Switzerland operate under different political systems, they are linked by a shared linguistic and cultural discourse that has carried Islamophobia from the confines of street protests into the very architecture of the state. Since 2015, the region has witnessed a sophisticated trend of “mainstreaming” in which the language of secularism, security and “Leitkultur” (Leading Culture) is frequently used to justify the systemic exclusion of Muslim citizens.

As a common denominator, it can be said that Islamophobia or anti-Muslim racism (terms we use interchangeably) is defined not primarily by individual prejudices but by a top-down process of normalization.

In Germany, the rise of the AfD has expanded the boundaries of “what can be said,” much like the FPÖ in Austria and the SVP in Switzerland did decades ago. Conspiracy theories such as “remigration” and the “Great Replacement” have been brought into parliamentary debates and have become part of the official policy agenda.

In Austria, the state has assumed a more interventionist role, ranging from the restrictive Islam Act of 2015 to the “Islam Map” (Islam-Landkarte), which literally maps out Muslim life and has effectively treated a religious community as a permanent security threat.

Switzerland, on the other hand, as seen in its bans on minarets and face coverings (the burqa), has used its direct democracy system to transform popular sentiment into constitutional reality.

Beyond these developments, three distinct trends have solidified since 2015:

Despite these troubling developments, the past decade has also brought about a resilient infrastructure of resistance. Professional monitoring centers such as Dokustelle in Austria, the CLAIM alliance in Germany and the humanrights.ch network in Switzerland have begun to bring anti-Muslim racism out of the shadows. Looking ahead to the next decade, the German-speaking region faces a fundamental question: Will legal pressures against the visibility of Islam and its representatives continue, or will the structural racism threatening the democratic foundations of these nations be confronted?

The Silent Erosion of Germany’s “Welcome Culture”

Ten years ago, Germany was seen as a beacon of a “Welcoming culture” (Willkommenskultur). Today, that light has dimmed, giving way to a political and social landscape in which anti-Muslim attitudes are no longer a marginal phenomenon but a normalized feature of institutional life. Since 2015, Islamophobia in Germany has evolved from the loud, sporadic protests of groups like PEGIDA into a structural reality that was already present but is now ever-present and pervasive.

The most alarming shift is the spread of hatred from the streets to centers of power and into citizens’ daily lives. The rise of the AfD has been the primary driver of this change. By 2019, fascist rhetoric once considered taboo had seeped into mainstream politics. High-profile figures like Björn Höcke began openly discussing scenarios of societal collapse through “population replacement” and paved the way for radical right-wing conspiracy theories such as the “Great Replacement.”

This radicalization of discourse led to concrete acts of violence. Reports document an increase in physical attacks against Muslims in schools, workplaces and public transportation. By 2022, the surveillance of Muslim children had become a widespread practice often with very little legal safeguards under the guise of counterterrorism.

What is particularly insidious is what we refer to as “institutional Islamophobia.” This is the vast gap between public pledges of diversity and the structural exclusion Muslims face when attempting to enter fields such as education or the judiciary. The years-long headscarf debate served as a litmus test for German tolerance. Although some legal victories have been achieved in the name of religious freedom, for many Muslim women reality is still shaped by professional rejection and social stigmatization.

Is there a glimmer of hope? Unfortunately, very little. The “positive” developments since 2015 have been largely reactive rather than proactive. The new German citizenship law, which came into effect in June 2024, is a double-edged sword: While it ostensibly enables faster citizenship, it introduces new conditions that are likely to create new avenues of discrimination for many.

Real progress lies in the growing infrastructure of resistance. #GegenHass digital monitoring projects and independent counseling centers have finally begun to lift the veil on unreported crimes. These institutions represent a civil society that refuses to look the other way, in an environment where the state still hesitates to define Islamophobia as a systemic form of racism, even as the federal police now record anti-Muslim hate crimes as a separate category.

Germany at a Crossroads

The shift that has taken place since 2015 has moved toward a “security-focused” perspective on the Muslim population; an entire faith community is viewed as a potential threat rather than an integral part of the social fabric. If the next decade is to be different from the past, the state must go beyond symbolic gestures of “tolerance” and address the structural racism that has institutionalized Islamophobia as the norm.

Austria: From Laboratory to Institutionalization

A decade ago, Austria’s political landscape was shaped by debates over the 2015 Islam Act (Islamgesetz). What was presented as a modernization of the 1912 law aimed at granting equal rights to Muslims actually became the cornerstone of a new and restrictive state approach. Since then, Austria has transformed from a country that referred to the “Austrian way” of integration into a laboratory for institutionalized Islamophobia.

The turning point was not a single event but the steady radicalization of state policy. By 2018, the political discourse had shifted toward a struggle against what official authorities termed “Political Islam.” This shift in rhetoric took physical form in 2021 with the controversial, state-funded project known as the “Islam Map” (Islam-Landkarte). By mapping the locations of hundreds of mosques and Muslim associations, the state branded an entire community as suspect, leading to an increase in vandalism targeting mosques.

“Operation Luxor”

The culmination of this institutional hostility was “Operation Luxor” in November 2020. This was the largest police raid in Austria’s postwar history. Announced as a supposed blow against “political Islam,” the raid involved pre-dawn raids on the homes of dozens of Muslim academics and activists. Years later, courts ruled that the raids were unlawful and the evidence “unreliable.” But the damage was done: The operation served as a “show of state power” designed to criminalize legitimate civil society activities and silence critical Muslim voices.

This trend was reinforced by the establishment of the “Documentation Center Political Islam”. Unlike institutions that monitor racism or hate crimes, this body was established to monitor a vague ideology, thereby transforming religious practices into security threats. The Austrian political elite, however, showed no reaction to findings revealed by the weekly Profilmagazine regarding the UAE’s role in funding such narratives.

Positive changes since 2015 have been few and far between and are almost entirely the result of grassroots resistance. Independent NGOs and researchers have stepped in where the state has failed. “Dokustelle Österreich” has become a vital hub documenting cases that official police statistics typically do not record. Similarly, legal victories such as the Constitutional Court’s 2020 overturning of the headscarf ban for elementary school children demonstrate that the law can still provide protection against state discrimination. However, these civil society organizations are also facing increasing pressure from the state.

Switzerland: Direct Democracy or Directed Hostility?

For decades, Switzerland has maintained an image of international neutrality and humanitarian sensitivity. However, over the past decade, a darker trend has crystallized domestically: the use of the country’s unique direct democracy system to enshrine anti-Muslim exclusion directly into the Federal Constitution. Since 2015, Switzerland has shifted from debates about the presence of Muslims to legally enshrining their invisibility.

The most significant negative turning point of this decade was the 2021 “face-covering ban” (often referred to as the burqa ban) referendum. While its supporters presented it as a step toward “liberation” and “security,” it was, in fact, the constitutional codification of discrimination against Muslim women. This situation followed the path of the 2009 minaret ban and demonstrated how, in the Swiss style of Islamophobia, the ballot box has become a tool for the majority to define the religious boundaries of the minority.

This legal exclusion is accompanied by an alarming “representation gap.” The Swiss media and political circles frequently discuss Muslims but rarely speak with them. Data from 2021 reveals a serious imbalance: while Muslims were the subject of intense public debates, they were systematically excluded from the panels and editorial boards shaping those debates.

Nevertheless, the story in Switzerland is not merely one of regression. A significant shift has occurred in the infrastructure of resistance. The collaboration of 23 different advisory centers demonstrates the professionalization of civil society. Organizations like “humanrights.ch” have created a vital counter-narrative to state narratives by providing legal and psychological support to victims.

Furthermore, despite the far-right’s noisy campaigns, the general public’s attitude has remained largely stable. While data indicates that 12% of the population harbors specific anti-Muslim hostility (which is higher than for other minority groups), the vast majority of the Swiss public has not fully succumbed to the radicalization of political campaigns.

Conclusion: Where to?

Switzerland’s challenge over the next decade, like that of Germany and Austria, is to bring its democratic mechanisms into alignment with its human rights obligations. If direct democracy continues to be used as a weapon by the majority to enact legislation against the religious symbols of a minority, Switzerland’s “living together” model will remain an empty promise. The way forward requires overcoming constitutional barriers and genuinely including Muslim voices in public discourse.

This article was first published on the Türkiye Research Foundation’s Website on March 23, 2026.