Swiss voters back minarets ban in referendum
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Sunday, 29, Nov 2009 04:14
By Sarah Garrod.
Swiss voters have supported a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets, by more than 57 per cent.
The anti-immigration, and Switzerland's biggest party, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) claim the Islamic turrets are attached to mosques as symbols of militant Islam.
More than 57 per cent of voters from 26 cantons, or provinces, voted in favour of the banning of minarets.
The SVP forced a referendum on whether or not minarets should be banned, after they petitioned 100,000 signatures. The government has opposed the ban and opponents say it would discriminate, while the SVP has been accused of stirring up hatred.
Switzerland is home to 400,000 Muslims and has just four minarets. Islam is the second most popular religion after Christianity in the country.
At the centre of the campaign against minarets was a controversial poster showing a woman in a burqa with missile-shaped minarets behind her.
Before the result was released, Amnesty International urged the Swiss people to reject the proposal outright. UK campaigns director Tim Hancock said: "Freedom of religious belief is a basic human right and changing the Swiss constitution to ban the construction of minarets would clearly breach the rights of the country's Muslims.
"Of course, someone building a mosque should be subject to the same reasonable planning restrictions as anyone else. But these must be applied equally to all. To specifically target minarets while, for example, allowing the construction of church spires would discriminate against Muslims on the basis of their religion."
The Swiss government had also urged people to vote against the ban. Swiss president Hans-Rudolf Merz said: "Muslims should be able to practice their religion and have access to minarets in Switzerland too. But the call of the muezzin will not sound here."
Partial results from the poll indicated that the German-speaking canton of Lucerne accepted the ban, while French-speaking cantons Geneva and Vaud voted against, news agency AFP reported.