SWITZERLAND BANS MOSQUE MINARETS

7th December 2009

APN Newsletter

Swiss voters have voted overwhelmingly to impose a constitutional ban on minarets, barring construction of further mosque towers in a vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population. Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic. Business groups said the decision hurt Switzerland's international standing and could damage relations with Muslim nations.Omar Al-Rawi, an integration representative for Islam said his reaction was one of "grief and deep disappointment".  

The initiative was approved 57.5 to 42.5 per cent. Muslims comprise about 6 per cent of Switzerland's 7.5 million people. Many are refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and about one in 10 actively practises their religion.  The country's four existing minarets will not be affected by the ban as they do not traditionally broadcast the call to prayer outside their own buildings. The sponsors of the initiative provoked complaints from human-rights group by claiming that the growing Muslim population was straining the country "because Muslims don't just practise religion".
"The minaret is a sign of political power and demand, comparable with whole-body covering by the burqa, tolerance of forced marriage and genital mutilation of girls," the sponsors said. They said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared mosques to Islam's military barracks and called "the minarets our bayonets". Anxieties about growing Muslim minorities have rippled across Europe in recent years, leading to legal changes in some countries. There have been French moves to ban the full-length body covering known as the burqa.  

Some German states have introduced bans on headscarves for Muslim women teaching in public schools. Mosques and minaret construction projects in Sweden, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Germany and Slovenia have been met by protests. But the Swiss ban on minarets, sponsored by the country's largest political party, was one of the most extreme reactions. Mohammed Shafiq, the chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, a British youth organisation said he was concerned the decision could have reverberations in other European countries.  

Amnesty International said the vote violated freedom of religion and would probably be overturned by the Swiss supreme court or the European Court of Human Rights. The seven-member Cabinet that heads the Swiss government had spoken out strongly against the initiative but the government said it accepted the vote and would impose an immediate ban on minaret construction. It said that "Muslims in Switzerland are able to practice their religion alone or in community with others, and live according to their beliefs just as before".  

"The sponsors of the ban have influenced a change in the relations with Muslims in a negative way," said Taner Hatipoglu, president of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Zurich. "Muslims indeed will not feel safe any more." Geneva's main mosque was vandalised on Thursday when someone threw a pot of pink paint at the entrance. Earlier this month, a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating the call to prayer, and vandals damaged a mosaic when they threw cobblestones at the building.