To speak out or not to speak out? Exploring the reporting of discrimination among Muslims and Jews in Switzerland

ABSTRACT

Muslims and Jews are among the minorities in Switzerland who are most disliked and discriminated against, but the frequency with which the two groups report racist incidents to official bodies and initiate court proceedings differs greatly. The goal of this paper is to establish the extent of these differences and to explore the reasons for them. We use data from a representative survey, official datasets of reported cases of discrimination and legal proceedings, as well as 27 semi-structured interviews with representatives from Muslim and Jewish organisations, and from government centres that record incidents. We show that Muslims and Jews perceive discrimination at similar levels, but that the latter report discrimination and initiate court proceedings much more frequently than Muslims. We find that these differences can be explained by a divergence between the two groups in terms of perceived costs, in-group norms, structural factors, and organisational opportunities. In comparison to Jews, Muslims typically (1) are less confident that reporting discrimination will have a positive outcome; (2) are more concerned about being seen as ‘victims’; (3) are less well-informed about the possibilities available to them to report discrimination; and (4) come from communities that have lower organisational capacities in this regard.

KEYWORDS:

• Discrimination
• Jews
• Muslims
• racism
• underreporting

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Jean-Philippe Antonietti for his precious help with the simulations and David West for his attentive proofreading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The qualitative data (anonymised interview transcripts and codebook) supporting the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author (AL). The quantitative data from the ELRC and RS were generated by the Federal Office for Statistics (FSO) and can be requested at https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/population/enquetes/esrk.html and accessed at https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/catalogues-banques-donnees/tableaux.assetdetail.15384750.html. Population estimates in 2019 with confidence intervals are available at https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/catalogues-banques-donnees/tableaux.assetdetail.15384750.html. Data on reported incidents regarding Muslims are available at https://network-racism.ch/fr/rapports-sur-le-racisme/index.html, and those regarding Jews are available at https://www.swissjews.ch/fr/antisemitisme/rapports/archives/ and https://cicad.ch/fr/antisemitisme/rapports. Data on court proceedings are openly available at https://www.ekr.admin.ch/prestations/f518.html. Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [AL].

Notes

1 See also: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2017a).

2 See also: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2017b, 2018).

3 See European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2017b).

4 See European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2018).

5 See ‘Data availability statement’ section. An item asking respondents to designate their religion is used to build the categories ‘Muslims’ and ‘Jews’.

6 The category ‘with a migration background’ defined by the FSO includes: individuals with foreign citizenship, naturalized individuals (except those born in Switzerland to two parents born in Switzerland), and Swiss-born individuals who have two parents born in a different country. See https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/population/migration-integration/by-migration-status.html Accessed 27 January 2022.

7 https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/54/757_781_799/fr#a261bis.

8 https://www.ekr.admin.ch/prestations/f518.html.

9 For example, in 2019, 55 cases out of 73 (75%) were considered substantiated acts of racial discrimination.

10 See ‘Data availability statement’ section.

11 The question for the dependent variable is, ‘Have you been discriminated against because of your religious affiliation in one or more concrete situations in Switzerland in the last 12 months?’, followed by a list of 11 life domains. The question on religious affiliation is, ‘Would you say that you have a religion and, if so, which one?’. Translations are ours.

12 See ‘Data availability statement’ section.

13 See ‘Data availability statement’ section.

14 An additional point is that it takes time from feeling discriminated against to reporting, initiating legal action, and then reaching a court decision. Accordingly, when we measure the percentage of perceived discrimination and that of court decisions, it is highly likely that we do not capture the same individuals who experience discrimination and who report or receive a court decision. Again, one should interpret the results as the general percentages of feeling discriminated against and of reporting emerging from the respective groups.

15 This result remains when controlling for gender and level of education.

16 The syntax for these calculations is available from the authors.

17 The R syntax for these calculations and the robustness tests is available from the authors.