The president of a Swiss Islamic organisation has called for a single umbrella organisation to represent the country’s various Muslim groups.
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Hisham Maizar, president of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland, told the Sunday newspaper Le Matin Dimanche that the goal of a single governing body was still far away.
Maizar also said the country’s Muslims needed to cooperate with authorities in dealing with radical clerics.
The federal government has also taken notice of the absence of a single body for Muslims. Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf has called for another roundtable discussion with different groups.
The meeting will take place before Christmas, a spokesman told the Swiss News Agency. The groups already had a discussion in September about integration.
On November 29, Swiss citizens voted by a 57.5 per cent margin to ban the construction of new minarets, the spires attached to Muslim mosques.
Pierre Vogel, the controversial German imam barred from addressing a rally on Saturday against the vote, told Sunday’s SonntagsBlick newspaper that he himself was against the construction of minarets, which he said were “not necessarily part of our religion”.
Money spent on minarets could better be spent on Muslim youth and on programmes for criminals, he said.
Saturday’s rally in front of parliament in Bern attracted around 700 people and ended peacefully. It was not endorsed by any of Switzerland’s main Muslim groups.
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Islamic preacher turned away at Swiss border
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The Federal Migration Office had already said that the presence of Pierre Vogel at Saturday afternoon’s rally in the capital Bern was considered a danger for public law and order. Vogel, a former boxer who converted to Islam in 2001, tried to cross into Switzerland by car near Basel at about 10:30pm but was refused…
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At a joint media conference on Thursday, representatives of national Muslim umbrella organisations explained the position of their communities towards the anti-minaret initiative which comes to a popular vote on November 29. “Muslims in Switzerland identify with Switzerland as their home, whose constitution and laws guarantee them protection, freedom and security,” said Farhad Afshar on…
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The vote revealed the hidden fears of many Swiss, and Muslims should respond by trying to build harmony across society, a leading Muslim scholar says. The reaction of Ali Gomaa, the grand mufti of Egypt, was echoed by a number of other Muslim scholars and commentators whom swissinfo.ch spoke to outside Switzerland. “This result should…
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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…
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Most people swissinfo.ch spoke to in the streets of Bern on November 29 said they had voted in favour of a ban on the building of minarets. Only two supporters of the initiative agreed to be taped. (Julie Hunt, swissinfo.ch 29.11.2009)
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