Has coronavirus prompted rise in racist incidents across Europe?
- A Dutch DJ prompted a national outcry playing a song mocking the Chinese, while in Italy a well-known musician stepped in to save a man from an attack
- Senior officials have called on people across the continent to fight ‘stigma and discrimination’
The Covid-19 outbreak has prompted a string of complaints about racist behaviour targeting members of the Chinese diaspora across Europe, prompting calls to do more to tackle “stigma and discrimination”.
A radio DJ broadcast on February 6 sparked national outrage in the Netherlands for the playing a satirical song titled Voorkommen is beter dan Chinezen, or “Prevention is Better than Chinese”, playing on the similar sounding words for “Chinese” and “cure” (genezen, pronounced with a guttural “ch”).
The song also had lines that said if people do not eat Chinese food, they will have nothing to worry about.
More than 50,000 people signed a petition denouncing the song as racist, forcing the DJ Lex Gaarthuis to issue an apology to the country’s Chinese community. Parliament also passed a motion condemning “offensive and unacceptable” insults to people of Chinese descent.
Meanwhile in Italy, television presenter and musician Francesco Facchinetti intervened to try to stop two young men attacking an older Asian man in Brianza, a small town north of Milan.