Swiss cities march against minaret ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lausanne protest

Up to 8,000 people in the French-speaking part of Switzerland took to the streets on Tuesday evening to protest against the minaret ban. A march in Lausanne attracted up to 5,000 supporters, while a demonstration in Geneva was attended by more than 2,000 people, with smaller protests taking place in other towns.

In Lausanne the crowd marched from the cathedral to the mosque shouting “no to exclusion” and “no to discrimination”. In front of the mosque, representatives of the Muslim community thanked the four cantons – Basel City, Geneva, Vaud and Neuchâtel – which voted against the minaret ban. “You warmed our hearts,” they said.

The protests were organised by the Movement Against Racism with support from the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim communities.

Candlelit vigils of several hundred people were organised in the French-speaking towns of Fribourg, Bienne, Neuchâtel and Sion.

Swissinfo, 2 December 2009

Jewish groups criticise Swiss minaret ban

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Jewish groups have criticised the result of the Swiss referendum in favour of banning the building of minarets on mosques.

The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities has been vocal against the ban. Dr Herbert Winter, its president, said: “As Jews we have our own experience. For centuries we were excluded: we were not allowed to construct synagogues. We do not want that kind of exclusion repeated.”

British and international Jewish groups have also condemned the result of the referendum.

A spokeswoman for the Board of Deputies said: “We do not seek to interfere in the affairs of other countries but must condemn intolerance wherever it occurs. Swiss Muslims should be made to feel at home in Switzerland, just as we hope that Muslims, Jews and other minorities in this country should be allowed to practise their faiths freely and without restraint.”

She added: “In our own country, we have seen the continuing victimisation of Muslims and other minorities by these groups. These have ranged from intimidatory protests outside mosques, to cemetery desecrations, to arson attacks, and even to murder. The Board of Deputies is appalled by such developments and stands with the vast majority of British society who condemn them.”

The New York-based Anti-Defamation League echoed the sentiments of the Board, and said in a statement: “This is not the first time a Swiss popular vote has been used to promote religious intolerance. A century ago, a Swiss referendum banned Jewish ritual slaughter in an attempt to drive out its Jewish population. We share concerns that those who initiated the anti-minaret campaign may now try to further erode religious freedom through similar means.”

Jewish Chronicle, 2 December 2009

Tariq Ramadan addresses French ‘burqa’ inquiry

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Tariq Ramadan 5One of Europe’s leading Muslim scholars, Tariq Ramadan, told French lawmakers Wednesday they were failing to address the real problems facing French Muslims by debating whether to ban the burqa. Swiss-born Ramadan told a parliamentary inquiry holding hearings on the wearing of the full Islamic veil that a law banning the practice would simply force Muslim women who cover themselves to “stay at home”.

“This debate surrounding the burqa bothers me,” Ramadan told the panel. “Because in the end, this is not the question that needs to be raised. The real problem is that when you have a name that is a bit Arab-sounding, or Muslim by affiliation, you are not going to get a job or you are not going to get an apartment.”

The decision to invite Ramadan to testify before the panel had stirred much controversy with some of the lawmakers opposed to his appearance and accusing him of promoting hardline Islam

A professor of Islamic studies at Oxford, Ramadan warned lawmakers that a law banning the burqa would be counter-productive and urged them to instead work with French Muslim leaders for change. “All of this commotion over the burqa does tell ordinary citizens that there is something wrong with Islam and leads to stigmatisation,” he said.

Khaleej Times, 2 December 2009

Qaradawi calls for peaceful campaign to reverse Swiss minaret ban

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Qaradawi 5Qatar’s prominent Islamic scholar and chairman of the International Federation of Ulema (IFU) Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has urged the Muslims of Switzerland to seek the annulment of the ban on the construction of minarets on mosques in that country, according to reports published in the local Arabic press.

Addressing a message to the Muslims of Switzerland in the context of the referendum in which 57.5% of the Swiss people voted for the ban, Sheikh Qaradawi said:

“Consider yourself as an integral part of the society you live in; be loyal, honest and sincere to your country of domicile. You should work hard and be perfect in whatever work you do for the sake of the progress and betterment of that country. Do not be upset by those who want to antagonise and frustrate you. Indeed you should try to reason with them in a calm and composed manner. Be tolerant and patient whenever you feel hurt and let down.

“The IFU is of the view that this decision, irrespective of the fact that it has been taken on a majority vote, is a new form of animosity against Islam and Muslims in Switzerland. The rest of Europe may perhaps follow suit as indicated by Denmark. It has hailed this vote and announced that it will make a similar move.

“It is obligatory on the part of the Swiss government to take necessary measures to safeguard the lives of the Muslim minority against this animosity.

“The IFU urges the Muslim minority in Switzerland to be calm and restrain from emotional reactions. They should seek to have this decision annulled through legal and democratic channels. And work in co-ordination with all those local and international organisations that have deplored this decision.

“The IFU also calls upon the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) to launch an international campaign against this decision and to expose the double standards practised by the Western countries.”

Gulf Times, 2 December 2009

Michael Burleigh and Taj Hargey on the Swiss referendum

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In the Daily Mail Michael Burleigh opines: “The Swiss have been forced to recognise that many of their people are worried about Islam’s unquestioned, undemocratic encroachments into Western society. And unless our own Government now takes note and instigates a rational but robust debate on the subject, we can expect far more trouble ahead.”

Over at the Times the inimitable Taj Hargey assures us that the ban “does not infringe the religious liberty of Swiss Muslims. Minarets remain emblematic of mosques in the Muslim heartlands but there is no theological reason why houses of worship in the West have to incorporate such towers”.

Indeed, according to Hargey, if there is a rise in bigotry against Muslims across Europe they themselves are primarily to blame: “Only when Muslim immigrants and converts in Europe reject the twisted ideology of a fundamentalist male clergy will the chief causes of anti-Muslim prejudice in Europe recede.”

UN rights chief slams Swiss ban on minarets

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The United Nations’ top human rights official on Tuesday criticized a Swiss ban on building Muslim minarets, saying the measure was “clearly discriminatory.”

Such a ban is “discriminatory, deeply divisive and a thoroughly unfortunate step for Switzerland to take, and risks putting the country on a collision course with its international human rights obligations,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.

“I hesitate to condemn a democratic vote, but I have no hesitation at all in condemning the anti-foreigner scare-mongering that has characterized political campaigns in a number of countries, including Switzerland, which helps produce results likethis,” Pillay said.

She noted that politics based on xenophobia or intolerance “is extremely disquieting, wherever it occurs.” “It is corrosive, and – beyond a certain point – can become socially disruptive and even dangerous,” she added

Xinhua, 1 December 2009

Submitting anti-Muslim actions to a ‘Jewish test’

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Jonathan_Freedland“It’s a crude reaction but it’s the first one I had on hearing that the Swiss had voted to ban the building of minarets on mosques – the same reaction I have to the increasingly-frequent stories like it: how would I feel if this were not about them, but us? How, in other words, would I react if this latest attack were not on Muslims but on Jews?

“It’s crude because no two situations are ever exactly the same, and Muslims and Jews have different histories – in Switzerland and everywhere else. But it’s useful, allowing the testing of any proposition against an almost instinctive yardstick of decency.

“So how would I react if the Swiss voted to restrict the way synagogues are built? With horror, of course. Indeed, the mere hint of such a proposal in the heart of Europe – given the blood-soaked history of the 20th century – would send a shudder down the collective spine. That reaction alone would tell me that, on this proposal, there was only one decent place to be – against it.

“Or take Jack Straw’s campaign against the niqab in 2006. He and his supporters made what they hoped was a subtle, nuanced case against women wearing the full veil, but my first thought was much simpler. What if a government minister told ultra-orthodox Jewish men that, in their full beards, it was hard to tell them apart, or that he disliked the custom that commands ultra-orthodox Jewish women to cut off their hair, covering their heads with either a wig or a hat? No matter how subtle or nuanced his reasons, I would feel that this was, at best, an act of bullying directed at a vulnerable minority or, at worst, the first step towards something much more menacing.”

Jonathan Freedland at Comment is Free, 1 December 2009

Tariq Ramadan analyses the Swiss referendum

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SVP anti-minaret poster“Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?

“The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.

“Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely ‘integrated’. That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.”

Guardian, 30 November 2009

Ed Balls takes on Tories over HT

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Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Ed Balls responds to the Tories’ demand for a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir, accusing them of feeding the anti-Muslim propaganda of the right-wing press and aiding the far right:

“… whatever the political and media pressure – politicians cannot and should not make organisations unlawful simply because they find their views offensive and deplorable without the necessary evidence. Nevertheless, David Cameron and Michael Gove continue to call for Hizb-ut-Tahir to be banned – without providing the evidence and ignoring the legal advice Ministers have received.

“Last week, they renewed this attack by making a series of allegations about two independent Muslim schools which they claimed had not been inspected by Ofsted and were in receipt of public money from the anti-terrorism budget, which was being used by Hizb-ut-Tahir to promote extremism.

“Even if these allegations were correct, it would have been reckless to raise these very serious and sensitive issues in the highly charged atmosphere of Prime Minister’s Questions. The fact that these allegations turned out to be false is deeply irresponsible. David Cameron was reduced to saying his wider point was right: that two schools with some alleged connections to Hizb-ut-Tahir had received some public money.

“Forget that both schools are properly registered and inspected. Forget the fact that in all Ofsted’s inspections, no evidence has been found that extremist or anti-semitic views are being taught. Forget that the only public funding these schools have received is from their local councils to provide free nursery places for local three and four year olds.

“Predictably David Cameron’s false allegations generated tabloid headlines such as: ‘Extremists benefit from state funding’ and ‘£113,000 aid to fanatics who want to kill us’. But at what price? Parents and children being told that ‘fanatics’ are teaching their children – presenting a propaganda victory for both extremists in the Muslim community as well as Islamaphobic and racist organisations on the far-right.

“We all know how difficult it is for a country like ours to tackle the extremist threat effectively. We have to be vigilant and investigate every potential threat. But we also have to be responsible and work with the law-abiding Muslim community. If we bandy around accusations regardless of the facts, and take action regardless of the evidence, we will just end up alienating the very communities we need to help us tackle extremism.”