Swiss voters back minarets ban

[Hopeless Romantic]

Swiss voters have approved a proposal to ban the construction of minarets, after a rightwing campaign that labelled the mosque towers as symbols of militant Islam, projections by a respected polling institute show.

The projections based on partial returns indicate that support swung from 37% in favour of the ban a week ago to 59% in today's referendum.

Claude Longchamp, head of the gfs.bern polling institute, said the projection for state-owned DRS television showed approval in more than half the country's 26 cantons, meaning the measure will become a constitutional amendment.

The nationalist Swiss People's party (SPP) described minarets, the distinctive spires used in most countries for calls to prayer, as symbols of rising Muslim political and religious power that could eventually turn Switzerland into an Islamic nation.

Muslims make up about 6% of Switzerland's 7.5 million people, many of them refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Fewer than 13% practice their religion, the government says, and Swiss mosques do not broadcast the call to prayer outside their buildings.

"Forced marriages and other things like cemeteries separating the pure and impure – we don't have that in Switzerland, and we do not want to introduce it" said Ulrich Schlueer, co-president of the Initiative Committee to ban minarets.

The move by the SPP, the country's largest party in terms of popular support and membership in parliament, is part of a broader European backlash against a growing Muslim population. It has stirred fears of violent reactions in Muslim countries and an economically disastrous boycott by wealthy Muslims who bank, shop and holiday in Switzerland.

Taner Hatipoglu, president of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Zurich, said, "The initiators have achieved something everyone wanted to prevent, and that is to influence and change the relations to Muslims and their social integration in a negative way."

Hatipoglu said that if the anti-Islam atmosphere continued in the long term, "Muslims ... will not feel safe any more".

The seven-member cabinet that heads the Swiss government spoke out strongly against the initiative before the vote, and local officials and rights defenders objected to campaign posters showing minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman.

The SPP has campaigned against immigrants in previous years – mainly unsuccessfully – with campaign posters showing white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag and another with brown hands grabbing eagerly for Swiss passports.

The four minarets already attached to mosques in the country are not affected by the vote.

On Thursday, Geneva's main mosque was vandalised when a pot of pink paint was thrown at the entrance. Earlier this month a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating a muezzin's call to prayer, and vandals damaged a mosaic when they threw cobblestones at the building.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/29/swiss-minarets-ban-referendum

[non sociopath skin]

1. I guess that's Switzerland off the wealthy arabs' holiday and shopping list.

Hope it hits them in the pocket where it hurts most.

The Skin

[Hopeless Romantic]

5. I wonder if those wealthy Arabs would be happy to have

Swiss people building churches, drinking alcohol and wearing bikinis in some of their countries?

Will the people of Saudi Arabia be getting a vote on that?

[non sociopath skin]

6. So should we be using Saudi as a benchmark then, HR?

The Skin

[Hopeless Romantic]

7. Certainly not.

I'm just sayin'

[LeftishBrit]

2. Switzerland has cuckoo clocks and some cuckoo politicians.

A strange contradiction: one of the few countries where several nationalities live fairly peacefully together, but very xenophobic about other countries.

But what do you expect of a country that didn't give women the vote till 1971?

I suspect they'll reconsider when they see that this restricts their business links with many other countries. After all, their economy depends quite a lot on banking and tourism: two industries where it's hard to be isolationist.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Actually this perhaps should be seen...

as one warning (California's Proposition 8 is another) against using the referendum to determine the rights of minority groups.

[T_i_B]

4. The right to worship god as you please should be sacrosanct

However, religious freedom, despite being of of the most important freedoms of all is also one of the most unfashionable. On the one hand you have the rabidly anti-muslim right and on the other you have the anti everyone-who-isn't-an-atheist left.

As well as being a stupid verdict from a liberty point of view it's also a stupid verdict from an architectural point of view. If you are going to ban a style of architecture at least ban brutalism and get rid of those horrible 1960's tower blocks.

[Hopeless Romantic]

8. Not sure about that really

Should we accept human sacrifice or female circumcision in the name of religion?

Banning minarets is not denying or restricting the right to practice the Islamic faith is it?

Mosques have not been banned in Switzerland. The Q'oran has not been banned has it?

No one is saying that Muslims can't worship in Switzerland, just that they can't build minarets.

I think it was a stupid thing to call a referendum on and a stupid result, but it's a democratic result, for good or bad.

[non sociopath skin]

9. So you think the Swiss far-right will stop at that, HR?

You named yourself well, IMHO!

BTW What's human sacrifice got to do with it?

The Skin

[Hopeless Romantic]

10. Doubtless, in fact they've already started

The rightwing Swiss People's Party is planning further steps against the spread of Islam in Switzerland following voters' approval of a ban on new minarets.

High on the agenda are tighter legal measures against forced marriages and genital mutilation of women, as well as a ban on wearing the burka in public and special dispensation from swimming lessons for Muslim pupils.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/Rightwing_set_to_tighten_grip_on_Muslim_customs.html?siteSect=105&sid=11563693&cKey=1259661843000&ty=st


Fancy banning chopping off little girls clitorises eh?

Who would want to do that?

Or forcing girls to marry against their wishes?

Interesting this too, when Sarkozy proposed banning the burqua in France earlier this year he was roundly applauded at home and there was no international outcry either. What's the difference?

[LeftishBrit]

11. So far as I know...

Switzerland never *did* allow forced marriages or female genital mutilation.

Female genital mutilation is nowadays banned in many Muslim-majority countries as well as others. It is not in any case a specifically Muslim custom, and is part of the traditional practices of several African countries (which are also now imposing bans).

As regards the burqa: I don't like the burqa but also don't much like the state being able to tell people what they can wear. However, as regards 'what is the difference between that, and banning the construction of minarets' - the difference is between a rather draconian custom of very traditionally religious Muslims, and a basic part of Muslim worship in general. Ask the Turks. Their Muslim majority worship in mosques with minarets, but their laws about wearing hijabs and burqas in public buildings are almost as strict as the French ones.

In any case: my strongest concern here goes beyond this law itself. It is that I strongly feel that the public referendum is an inappropriate way of deciding on social issues that affect minority groups. Just as it is inappropriate to use a referendum to decide on whether gays can get married (Proposition 8), or referenda of all-male voters to decide whether women should be allowed to vote (as the Swiss did, resulting in women's suffrage being delayed till 1971!) Pure forms of 'direct democracy' have their problems, especially when right-wing media whip up mob spirit.

[Hopeless Romantic]

12. fair points, well put