3 DISCRIMINATION AND RACIST AND XENOPHOBIC INCIDENTS Media and civil society organisations have reported incidents of racism, xenophobia and intolerance targeted certain national or ethnic communities linked to the COVID-19 pandemic in most EU Member States. Most are related to incidents against people of Chinese and of Asian origin or those perceived to be of Chinese or Asian origin. As yet, however, there is very little official data on the prevalence of these incidents available. FRA’s research into minorities’ experiences of discrimination consistently shows that victims of discriminatory incidents seldom report their cases to relevant authorities.182 As such, the racist and xenophobic incidents shown in the media could be just the tip of the iceberg. Some reports show other groups also being targeted. The Finnish Association of People with Physical Disabilities reports several cases of hate speech directed against persons with disabilities in the context of the outbreak, e.g. people accusing disabled persons for taking health care resources needed to combat the virus.183 3.1 INCREASE IN RACIST AND XENOPHOBIC INCIDENTS Typically, incidents involved people being shouted at or insulted in public. Children of assumed Asian origin were also harassed on the street and bullied at school (for example in Austria and Belgium184). Two small-scale surveys looking into discrimination experiences of people of Chinese origin linked to COVID-19 reveal a high prevalence of racist and xenophobic incidents. A survey of 300 persons with a Chinese background in the Netherlands was published on 13 February 2020.185 It showed that half of respondents (49 %) had experienced racism since the outbreak of COVID-19. Similarly, more than half of respondents to a survey of Chinese students in the German city of Tübingen published on 5 March 186 experienced discriminatory incidents once or more in the past months, mostly related to the outbreak. Equality bodies in several Member States also reported an increase in complaints linked to the COVID-19 outbreak. For example, the Anti-Discrimination Office of Styria (Austria) stated that on their app “Ban Hate”,187 which allows to report online hate speech, there had been an increase in posts blaming refugees in particular for the spread of the COVID-19 virus.. 33