fbpx
×

Log into your account

We have changed software providers for our subscription database. Old login credentials will no longer work. Please click the "Register" link below to create a new account. If you do not know your new account number you can contact [email protected]
Critics vow overturn of Swiss minarets ban
Elizabeth Bryant, Religion News Service
December 01, 2009
3 MIN READ TIME

Critics vow overturn of Swiss minarets ban

Critics vow overturn of Swiss minarets ban
Elizabeth Bryant, Religion News Service
December 01, 2009

PARIS — A Swiss vote to ban the construction of minarets at

Muslim houses of worship sent ripples of surprise and dismay across Europe and

Islamic countries Nov. 30, as opponents vowed to challenge the results.

“We are really sad — for ourselves and for Switzerland’s

place in the world,” said Geneva Muslim leader Hafid Ourardiri, after 57.5

percent of Swiss voted in favor of the ban. “This is not good for our country —

and Switzerland is our country.”

An estimated 400,000 Muslims call Switzerland home.

Ourardiri, who heads the Muslim Council of Interknowing, a nonprofit aimed at

promoting interfaith ties, said critics of the measure would file an appeal

with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Sunday’s vote amounts to a major victory for the nationalist

Swiss People’s Party, or S.V.P., which had championed the ban on grounds

minarets were unnecessary for worship and symbolized Islamic power.

“We have nothing against the building of mosques — it’s a

private affair and it’s part of religious freedom,” said Oskar Freisinger, a

senior member of the S.V.P. “But we don’t want Islam to interfere in our

political or legal system.”

Critics fear the Swiss vote could trigger a furious backlash

— even as far-right politicians in Europe say they are energized by the

results.

“We’re faced with a real anti-Muslim campaign that has begun

in Switzerland and which might spread elsewhere in Europe,” Kamel Kebtane,

director of the mosque in Lyon, France, told France-Info radio. “Today it’s

minarets, tomorrow it may be banning Muslims from practicing their faith.”

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was “scandalized”

by the results, while The Times of London newspaper called

it a “destructive and pernicious decision.”

Prominent Swiss Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan urged Europeans

to stand up against populist sentiments. “The Swiss majority are sending a

clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you, and the

best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see,” Ramadan wrote in a commentary

in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

In practical terms, the minaret ban will make little

difference — at least for now. Switzerland only has four mosque minarets, none

of which will be affected by the measure.

But far-right parties in Denmark and the Netherlands said

they would push for similar legislation, while Marine Le Pen, a senior member

of France’s anti-immigrant National Front party, said the Swiss vote reflected

European fears of the region’s growing Muslim population.

The minaret ban is only the latest example of opposition to

Islamic symbols in Europe. Efforts to build mosques have stalled in a number of

European countries. In France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim community, the

government banned girls from wearing headscarves in 2005 and is now mulling

calls to ban women from wearing the face-covering niqab veil in public.