The talk focused on poverty, climate change and nuclear weapons, and it's hard to see where Muslims/immigrants fit in, as this comment is generally glossed over by the UN and EU sites. Btw, it also looks like the EU site misquotes Ban's analogy of the Europe as a train engine. Ban used it in the context of fighting climate change, but the EU site just cuts that part away.
Via M&C:
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon warned on Tuesday against a 'dangerous trend' of intolerance targeting Muslim immigrants in Europe, in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
'A dangerous trend is emerging, a new politics of polarization. Some play on people's fears,' Ban said, adding, 'They accuse immigrants of violating European values.'
'Yet too often it is the accusers who subvert these values and thus the very idea of what it means to be a citizen of the European Union,' he continued.
'Europe's darkest chapters have been written in language such as this. Today the primary targets are immigrants of the Muslim faith,' he said. 'Europe cannot afford stereotyping that closes minds and breeds hatred, and the world cannot afford a Europe that does this.'(more)
