Seven political parties, including three of the four represented in government, have launched a campaign against an initiative to ban minarets in Switzerland.
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The cross-party campaign, an alliance of the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Radicals, the Greens and three small parties, says the initiative is an unnecessary, unlawful provocation that endangers peaceful religious and cultural co-existence.
A spokesman for the group said the anti-minaret initiative, which goes to a public vote on November 29, “fuels mutual distrust instead of addressing the issue of the integration of the Muslim population”.
Also on Tuesday, ten Church-affiliated and charitable organisations voiced their opposition to the initiative, saying it went against Christian and Swiss democratic values and discriminated against Muslims. A joint statement was issued by organisations including Caritas, Bread for All, and the interfaith working group of Switzerland.
The anti-minaret initiative was proposed by members of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party and a small ultra-conservative Christian party, to counter what they describe as “creeping Islamicisation”. The government strongly opposes the initiative, and has launched its own campaign against it.
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Voters to decide on controversial minaret ban
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The cabinet has come out against the controversial people’s initiative which was launched by members of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party and an ultra conservative party, the Federal Democratic Union, in 2007. Islamic countries as well as the United Nations expert on racism raised concern over the initiative. Jasmin Hutter, a People’s Party parliamentarian said…
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The government strongly opposes the initiative, and has launched its own campaign against it. The proposal, backed by the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, is also opposed by all the other main parties. Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf tells swissinfo.ch why she and her colleagues believe that it is counterproductive, but plays down fears expressed by some…
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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…
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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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