” “Acting firmly to contain rushes of intolerance towards foreigners, Islamic people and nomads. The warning was sent to the European governments from Thomas Hammarberg, commissioner for human rights at the Council of Europe (CoE), and comes aptly in the run-up to the World Tolerance Day that is going to be celebrated on November 16th. "If the European Governments states the commissioner fail to take strong measures, I think these trends will become irreversible". According to Hammarberg, this is about "proactively protecting the ideals on which Europe is based. It has been widely recognised that the weakening of social support networks and unemployment are some of the main causes of these xenophobic trends. Those economic policies which disregard the social dimension have destructive repercussions". Therefore, he concludes, "the governments should respond to crimes of hatred with firm legal measures, while also changing the syllabi so as to teach the young to respect differences". ” “
