A/HRC/6/6 page 11 31. Apart from individual acts of discrimination, a second and more general matter of concern consist in collective expressions of discrimination against Muslims, including ideological discrimination and actions that are institutionalized due to the support of political parties or local and national governments. 32. One particularly disturbing form of discrimination against Islam consists in the increasing hostility towards religious symbols. In various parts of the world, aggressive secularist rhetoric is building up, causing further discrimination against Muslims. A case in point is the building of mosques, a visible symbol of Islam which has become a straightforward target for discriminatory practices. A number of communities in various countries have imposed numerous obstacles to the building of new mosques, a practice that is in clear violation of the fulfilment of the right to religious freedom. In this regard, the recent statements by the Archbishop of Cologne expressing his wariness concerning the construction of a new mosque in the city have to be noted with regret. In Switzerland, the Swiss People’s Party (Union démocratique du Centre, UDC), one of the governing parties that use xenophobic populist rhetoric in reference to immigrants and asylum-seekers, has recently proposed a popular consultation on banning the construction of new Minarets in the country. In France and Germany far-right groups are openly campaigning - sometimes successfully - to oppose the construction of mosques. 33. Violent attacks against mosques and places of worship have also characterized the rise of Islamophobia in the past years. In several countries violent acts were perpetrated, including burning copies of the Koran and painting Islamophobic messages in mosques. On their most aggressive instances, these expressions of Islamophobia take the form of attacks against mosques, including attempted arson, such as in Quimper, France and Yaroslavl, Russian Federation, in September 2006. Profanation of Muslim cemeteries has also been a growing practice. 34. In the context of the fight against terrorism, the most visible facet of Islamophobia occurs in the field of security and anti-terrorism policies. A number of countries have adopted legislation that de facto allows for racial and religious profiling against Muslim citizens and immigrants, and various types of violation of basic human rights, including those enshrined in international treaties. Some national laws have suspended the habeas corpus and allowed the practice of preventive and arbitrary detentions without a formal accusation, for unlimited periods and without legal assistance, clandestine deportations, forced interrogation techniques and torture. 35. The Special Rapporteur is of the view that the question of the place of Islam lies increasingly at the centre of the construction of the new European identity. In this context the rise of Islamophobia reveals the existence of a European identity crisis. The debate over the entry of Turkey into the European Union, the demands for explicit reference to the Christian heritage of Europe in the project of European Constitution and various national attempts to establish governmental bodies in charge of national identity and immigration questions, as more recently in France, reveal the depth and urgency of the question of identity. The fundamental ideological legitimization of the Islamophobic trend is the dogmatic affirmation of the Christian nature of European civilization and, consequently, the fundamental threat posed by the presence, visibility and development of Islam. A recent example of this rhetoric is the statement made in 2007 by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education of Poland, Roman Giertych,