The controversial poster being used by the rightwing Swiss People's Party in its anti-minaret campaign continues to make headlines.
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The committee which launched the popular initiative to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland has now said it plans to take legal action against towns which have banned its display.
Committee chairman Walter Wobmann told the Swiss News Agency on Sunday that the committee had not yet decided the precise legal route they would take. They might bring a charge that their right to freedom of speech had been violated, or they might appeal against the decision to ban their advertisement.
Several towns, including Basel, Fribourg, Lausanne and Neuchâtel have forbidden display of the poster in publicly-owned spaces because they regard it as discriminatory.
It shows a woman wrapped in a burka standing next to a Swiss flag dotted with minarets.
Other towns, including Zurich and Geneva, are permitting the poster.
The initiative committee also plans to produce a second poster featuring the word “Censored” over the Swiss flag, and calling on voters to vote in favour of the ban nevertheless.
The issue comes to a popular vote on November 29.
Other than the People’s Party, all the major parties have come out strongly against the move, as has the Swiss government.
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Cities around Switzerland have reacted differently. While Lausanne, Montreux, Fribourg, Neuchâtel and Yverdon-les-Bains followed Basel in outlawing the posters in publicly owned spaces, Geneva, Zurich, Biel, Winterthur and Lucerne have rejected the ban on free-speech grounds. The main poster, which shows a woman in a burka and a Swiss flag with minarets springing out of…
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.