Brussels – Europe and the Arabs

Belgium should prioritize practical, targeted training on hate speech and hate crimes within both the basic training and refresher courses for police officers. This is a recommendation from the Council of Europe’s anti-racism commission, which warns of an increase in inflammatory and discriminatory rhetoric in the country.
The commission notes that this rise is particularly evident online, in politics, in the media, and within the realm of football. Reports of violent assaults and acts of vandalism have also emerged. In a report released on Tuesday, the commission stated that many instances of hate speech and hate crimes go unreported. According to the commission, police officers are not sufficiently aware of the necessity to prevent and combat such acts.

This was reported on Tuesday by Belgian media outlets, including the daily newspaper *Nieuwsblad*.
Challenges also persist in the education and healthcare sectors. Students with an immigrant background continue to achieve lower academic results than their peers; many attend schools where they constitute the majority or a significant portion of the student body. Meanwhile, it is alleged that patients with an immigrant background face discriminatory or inappropriate treatment by healthcare providers.
Furthermore, the European commission against racism and intolerance calls for legal protection for intersex children. There remains a lack of an adequate legal framework to prohibit medically unnecessary surgical procedures and other treatments. The commission urges Belgium to adopt comprehensive legislative proposals that explicitly recognize the right to bodily integrity. Non-therapeutic interventions must be prohibited until a child is able to participate in decision-making regarding their own care, based on free and informed consent.

The Council of Europe is an international organization with the stated objective of upholding human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Europe. Established in 1949, it comprises 47 member states with a total population of approximately 820 million, and operates with an annual budget of about 500 million euros.

Although it sometimes overlaps with the 27-member European Union—partly because the EU adopted the original European flag and anthem, both created by the Council of Europe in 1955—the Council is a distinct entity. No state has ever joined the European Union without first being a member of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe holds the status of an official observer to the United Nations.

Unlike the European Union, the Council of Europe cannot enact binding legislation; however, it has the authority to implement specific international agreements reached by European states on various issues. The European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the European Convention on Human Rights, is the Council’s most well-known body.

The Council’s statutory bodies include the Committee of Ministers—composed of the foreign ministers of member states—and the Parliamentary Assembly, which consists of members from the national parliaments of these states. Additionally, the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights serves as an independent institution within the Council, tasked with promoting awareness of and respect for human rights across member states. The organization’s secretariat is headed by a Secretary General. Other key bodies of the Council of Europe include the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare and the European Audiovisual Observatory. The Council of Europe is based in Strasbourg, France, and its official languages ​​are English and French. The Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly, and the Congress also use German, Italian, and Russian in some of their work.
The Council of Europe was established on May 5, 1949, by Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Greece joined three months later, followed by Iceland, Turkey, and West Germany the following year. The Council now has 47 member states, with Montenegro being the most recent to join.
Article 4 of the Statute of the Council of Europe stipulates that membership is open to any European state. From the outset—as evidenced by the admission of Turkey—this provision has been interpreted broadly to include transcontinental states (such as Georgia and Azerbaijan) as well as countries that are geographically in Asia but socio-politically European (such as Armenia and Cyprus). Nearly all European states have joined the Council of Europe, with the exceptions of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Vatican City, alongside certain territories with limited international recognition.
On February 25, 2022, Russia withdrew from the Council following pressure from other member states—including the suspension of its participation in various Council bodies (with the exception of the European Court of Human Rights and its judicial organs)—in response to its military operation in Ukraine.