“The numbers are not just statistics. Behind every number there is a face; behind every incident there is a story,” said Saeed Atrice Hashmi, 29, at the presentation of a new report on anti-Muslim incidents in Berlin on Wednesday.
Hashmi experienced this firsthand: On February 19, 2020, Hashmi survived an attack by a right-wing extremist in Hanau, near Frankfurt, who killed nine people with immigrant backgrounds at two crime scenes. Hashmi’s younger brother was killed among the people.
Today, Hashmi, the son of Afghan refugees, is a member of the “February 19 Hanau Initiative”, which preserves the memory of those killed and warns against xenophobia. The Hanau killings showed “where exclusion, dehumanization and racist stereotyping can lead,” Hashemi said. He is also the national president of Association of Binational Families and Partnerships.
The “Civil Society Assessment of Anti-Muslim Racism” is published annually. Coalition Against Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hostility (Claim).
Anti-Muslim racism in numbers
The 90-page document projects 4,096 anti-Muslim incidents in 2025, an increase of more than a thousand from the previous year (there were 3,080 in 2024).
Over 60% of all recorded incidents were verbal attacks (2,379 cases), while there were 840 cases of discrimination and another 680 cases of harmful behaviour, including physical attacks and property damage. The report notes two murders, 214 cases of grievous bodily harm, four cases of aggravated assault or attempt to murder and five cases of arson. The report also documented two murders and 214 serious assaults resulting in physical harm in 2025.
Additionally, out of a total of 64 attacks on religious institutions, 61 were on mosques, including bomb threats against mosque communities, posters put up outside mosques, and swastikas painted outside a university prayer room.
To compile its assessment, CLAIM analyzed reports from 38 counseling and documentation centers in 15 of Germany’s 16 states, data on politically motivated crime, media reports, and reports from those affected. Discrimination and attacks were recorded, regardless of whether they met the threshold for criminal prosecution or not. The organization said the perspectives of affected people were central to the process.
Rima Hanano, one of CLAIM’s executive directors, said Muslim people are portrayed “primarily as perpetrators, … but not as victims of exclusion and violence,” and warned of the consequences for those affected: experiences of racism reinforce a sense of “not belonging.” He argued that trust in politics was being lost and warned that addressing discrimination and violence touches “the core of our democracy”.
He said racism, in its various forms – Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and xenophobia – “is at extremely high levels.”
CLAIM also urged policymakers to strengthen support and protections for those affected, improve the investigation and prosecution of anti-Muslim hate crimes, and establish more counseling services.
The next generation of Muslims in Germany
As part of his work, Hashmi visits schools to talk to students about their experiences. “Anti-Muslim racism in Germany is not a marginal phenomenon, but a reality for many people,” he said.
And yet, she is optimistic: “I myself have high hopes for the new generation. I can see it too – the way they grow up together, come from different places and backgrounds, yet all have the same goal: to graduate from school. It connects them in a whole new way, and that’s why I’m so confident that the next generation can do even better than us.”
Hashmi said he is viewed as a role model for teenagers from immigrant families. Hashmi said, “They see me as someone with an immigrant background who grew up no different than they did, who maybe also comes from a socially disadvantaged neighborhood and has somehow managed to speak on big platforms or sit at tables where, as a person with that kind of background, you wouldn’t necessarily be invited.”
This article was translated from German.