“Minarettverbot” – German for “minaret ban” – prevailed over some 2,000 other entries as word of the year for 2009 in German-speaking Switzerland.
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The word had the potential to establish itself as a typically Swiss word like “muesli” (cereal), the seven-member jury said on Thursday.
The taboo word of the year is “Ventilklausel”, which describes the regulation of entry and migration of people from the European Union into Switzerland.
The word of the year has been chosen since 2003. The jury is headed by Hannes Hug, a radio personality, and made up of journalists from German-speaking Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
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Minarets provoke heated global reaction
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Ever since the launch of the campaign in July 2008 to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland, online pundits have rushed to their keyboards to attack minarets – or minaret attackers – on swissinfo.ch’s nine language sites. Our Arab site continues to receive a particularly high amount of feedback, especially since it includes comments…
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According to final results, 57.5 per cent of voters and a majority of cantons backed the initiative. Turnout was high, at around 53 per cent. The result comes as a major surprise and a slap in the face of the government. Opinion polls ahead of the vote had predicted the ban would be rejected by…
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A burka-clad woman, rocket-like minarets shooting from a Swiss flag: A poster by the rightwing Swiss People’s Party ahead of a nationwide vote on whether to ban the construction of new minarets in Switzerland has been banned as racist by the city of Basel. Swiss go to the polls on November 29 to decide on…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.