PARIS�The rise of brutal acts against asylum-seekers, immigrants, and refugees across Europe is cause for alarm for one international human rights organization. And the fact that racism is becoming increasingly accepted in the 15-nation European Union is cause for alarm for a European anti-racism watchdog group.

London-based Amnesty International on April 6 released a report titled "Concerns in Europe" that singled out Europe as a major human rights abuser. "Refugees and asylum-seekers and other groups of people that one might describe as marginalized, such as illegal immigrants, are among the most vulnerable people in Europe," said Brian Phillips, Amnesty�s European campaign director.

The report came right after a March 21 UN Population Division report that shows that virtually all countries in Europe are expected to decrease in population size over the next 50 years due to particularly low level fertility rates and a relatively rapid aging process.

That report concluded that from now to 2050 Europe would need to double the 900,000 immigrants it receives annually to prevent its total population and working-age population from critically declining. (See story on page 12.)

Amnesty�s survey of human rights in 34 European and Central Asian countries in the second half of 1999 found cases of torture and ill-treatment in 27 countries and political prisoners in 14. It also drew attention to the continuing human rights catastrophes in Chechnya and Kosovo, and cautions Western European nations against complacency.

The case of Nigerian asylum-seeker Semira Adamu, 21, who died of asphyxiation (police pressed her head into a pillow) while being forcibly deported from Belgium in September 1998, highlights the use of "cruel and dangerous methods of restraint" on asylum-seekers, the report said.

In England, the report raised concerns about deaths in police custody. There were 65 such deaths in 1998, the fourth increase in four years, and "a disproportionate number of them were from ethnic minorities."

Mr. Phillips said Amnesty found "a number of cases" where explicit racist abuse was prominent and that hostility against marginalized groups is sweeping Europe.

In Austria�s capital, Vienna, the head of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), an anti-racism group, also warned that Europe is going through a dangerous phase.

In a March 30 interview with Reuters, EUMC head Beate Winkler said racism is becoming increasingly accepted as EU politicians play on voter fears over immigration. There is also a move away from centrist positions and right-wing and far-right positions are "losing their taboos," he added.

One fear politicians play upon is the belief that immigrants will take jobs from Europeans. Parts of Europe are experiencing slow economies and high unemployment rates. According to European Union and Bloomberg Financial Office statistics, unemployment rates range from as low as 2.2 percent in Luxembourg to as high as 15.2 percent in Spain. France�s unemployment rate is 10.2 percent.

But Senegalese immigrant rights activist Isaac Fall, a legal immigrant in France, feels Europe needs more immigration, skilled and unskilled. "Immigrants usually do the menial jobs that nobody else wants to do," Mr. Fall said.

He and El Hadji Momar Diop, a fellow Senegalese who is fighting for legal status, head Collectif Saint-Bernard, named after the Church of Saint-Bernard in northern Paris. In August 1996 police in riot gear stormed the church to evict about 200 mostly Malian and Senegalese illegal immigrants who sought an end to tough immigration policies adopted in 1993. The laws stripped many of the immigrants of their right to stay in France. As many as 1 million of 5 million foreigners living in France are illegal immigrants.

Gilles Rivi�re, a colleague of a former French presidential candidate, said Europe has always needed immigrants for contributions to its economic growth. But, he said, in times of economic repression and unemployment, immigrants are the first to be scapegoated, especially the uneducated ones.

Mr. Rivi�re said earlier in the century, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese and Poles were often treated coldly when they arrived in France.

Amnesty�s Mr. Phillips concurred that hostility toward Arab and Islamic immigrants who have settled in France and other European countries in the last 30 years has been driven by a more overtly racist hatred. For one, unlike the Portuguese and migrants from other parts of Europe, their brown or Black skin immediately sets them apart from their white-skinned counterparts..