Swiss poll on minaret ban at mosques

WHEN SWISS voters go to the polls this weekend, they face a decision far more significant than the usual referendum issues of transport and schools. Sunday’s vote is on whether the Swiss want minarets banned from mosques. The initiative comes from the right-wing populist People’s Party (SVP) and, in keeping with recent tradition, the party has has rammed its point home with a poster. This time it shows a woman clad in a black burka before a Swiss flag dotted with black, missile-shaped minarets.

Attacked by critics as racist and xenophobic, the posters have plunged Switzerland into weeks of debate about religion and race, tolerance and terrorism. Looking on, nervously and angrily, are the country’s 400,000 Muslims.

"First it’s the minarets, then it’s the mosques, then the Muslims,” warned Ulysse Moh, caretaker of a Geneva mosque, to Swiss radio.

The campaign against minarets is a proxy battle: most of Switzerland’s Muslims originated in the Balkans and few are practising. Just four of Switzerland’s 200 mosques even have minarets and they are already subject to existing planning laws.

Lawyers say that the initiative, if passed, would breach existing Swiss laws guaranteeing freedom of belief and expression as well as equality and non-discrimination legislation (...)