Swiss anti-Minaret Vote passes

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Sunday November 29, 2009 14:56

by Chas D

Initial results in this week’s referendum to ban construction of new minarets in Switzerland suggests a small minority in favour of the prohibition. As in other democracies , the minaret is seen by many Swiss as the power symbol of political Islam and Sharia law.

The Swiss vote came after a group of politicians from the Swiss People's Party, and Federal Democratic Union gathered enough signatures to force the vote on the initiative .Walter Wobmann, one of the leaders of a committee set up to back the minaret ban , told Reuters earlier today :

“We just want to stop further Islamisation in Switzerland, I mean political Islam. People may practice their religion, that is no problem,"
SVP parliamentarian Oskar Freysinger, another driving force in the campaign, also emphasised that his opposition to the minarets was based on political grounds and was not against Islam as a faith or against Muslim people generally..

"If it's really just something decorative and secondary to them, why are they clinging so tightly to that symbol? It's a strong symbol for them, it's to show their territorial hold and I think for now, we'd rather not have that in our country,"
Some of the success of the campaign can be attributed to the vibrant Yes vote posters which showed a Swiss flag covered in missile-like minarets and the portrait of a woman covered with a black chador and veil .

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091129/tts-uk-swiss-minar....html