Anti-Muslim racism surges in Switzerland as discrimination cases remain at record levels
Schools and workplaces are the worst-hit settings, and experts warn the documented figures represent only the tip of the iceberg
BERN (MNTV) — Racial discrimination in Switzerland has settled at the highest levels ever recorded, with hostility toward Muslims showing the sharpest rise of any category, according to new data published jointly by the Federal Commission against Racism (FCR) and the human rights organisation humanrights.ch.
After a surge of nearly 40 per cent in 2024 — when 1,211 incidents were documented, including hate speech, physical assaults, threats, and other discriminatory behaviour — cases have now “stabilised at a high level,” the two bodies said in a joint statement.
Nora Riss, head of the Advisory Network that compiles the data, cautioned that it remained difficult to determine whether racism itself was increasing or whether more people were coming forward.
Muslims bear sharpest increase
While discrimination against Black people (33 per cent of all cases) and xenophobia (30 per cent) remained the most commonly reported forms of racism, the data revealed a dramatic jump in reports of anti-Muslim hostility.
Cases rose from 17 per cent of the total in 2024 to 23 per cent in 2025 — a six-percentage-point leap that made it the fastest-growing category by a significant margin.
Riss said the increase was partly attributable to the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland joining the advisory network in 2025, which gave Muslim communities a more direct channel for reporting.
But she also pointed to deep-rooted underreporting. Many people, she said, either do not know that advisory centres exist or do not trust them — a barrier that may now be beginning to erode.
A separate study published earlier this year by the Swiss Centre for Islam and Society at the University of Fribourg found that Muslims in Switzerland face an unemployment rate 2.4 times higher than the national average due to religious bias.
Job seekers with Turkish or Kosovar names — often assumed to be Muslim — faced significant discrimination in hiring processes regardless of whether they openly identified with the faith. Strikingly, neither Swiss citizenship nor a university degree reduced the likelihood of being discriminated against.
The Federal Statistical Office has found that hostility toward Muslims is the most widespread form of prejudice in Switzerland after general xenophobia, and is felt more intensely than other forms of bias.
Other categories documented in the latest report included discrimination against people from the Arab world (9 per cent), people of Asian origin (8 per cent), and antisemitism (5 per cent).
Schools and workplaces as frontlines
The education sector accounted for the largest share of reported cases at 22 per cent, with compulsory schooling the primary setting. Within schools, racism against Black students made up 41 per cent of incidents, followed by anti-Muslim racism at 25 per cent and xenophobia at 20 per cent.
The workplace ranked second at 17 per cent of all cases, and recorded the largest year-on-year increase of any setting — up three percentage points from the previous reporting period.
The FCR and humanrights.ch noted that authority figures including employers and teachers were failing to intervene consistently when racist incidents occurred and were not ensuring adequate protection for those affected.
Riss suggested that the absence of clear internal procedures was a likely driver of the rise in institutional settings. She called for designated, anonymous contact persons within organisations who could handle complaints and mediate — noting that attempting to resolve such cases from outside was often ineffective.
Roughly 100 of the incidents documented in 2024 involved racially motivated physical violence, while hate speech cases showed the steepest increase with 149 reported instances.
Over 400 cases of derogatory remarks, nearly 300 insults, and more than 100 direct threats were also recorded.
Broader pattern across Europe
Switzerland’s findings mirror a continent-wide trend. The EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency reported that 47 per cent of Muslims surveyed across 13 European countries said they had experienced racism in the past five years — up from 39 per cent in 2016.
The agency’s director, Sirpa Rautio, warned of a “worrying rise in racism and discrimination against Muslims in Europe,” exacerbated by dehumanising anti-Muslim rhetoric across the continent.
In Switzerland specifically, the political backdrop includes a constitutional ban on the construction of new minarets — approved by referendum in 2009 — and recurring public debates over head coverings, both of which have contributed to a climate in which Muslims are repeatedly singled out as a subject of political contention.
“Only the tip of the iceberg”
A separate survey by the Federal Service for Combating Racism found that 17 per cent of Switzerland’s resident population said they had personally experienced racial discrimination in the past five years.
Riss stressed that the country still lacked systematic monitoring of racialised communities.
The FCR and humanrights.ch were blunt in their assessment: the documented cases, they said, represent only a fraction of the discrimination actually taking place.
With nearly 40 per cent of Switzerland’s population of nine million having a migration background, and with advisory structures only now beginning to reach the communities most affected, the true scale of the problem remains largely invisible.
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