Swiss vote to ban minarets in referendum

[mateykatie]

Switzerland has voted to ban the construction of mosque minarets in a national referendum. 57% supported the ban.

Here is the BBC story.

Women voted for the ban more than men according to the Times.

This seems pretty horrible to me. I always thought the Swiss were tolerant but obviously not.

Interesting how this conversation evolved from minarets to the holocaust.

Well said, slim.

the Swiss are interested in their future...not their past..

hence the vote...naff off with your minarets....not necessary and we don't want them.....

democracy is a wonderful thing.

For having spent the first 23 years of my life there with an Italian Dad an a Swiss Mother, I can tell you that if you are foreign (I grew up in a village , not a city BTW it might be different)you do not need to be Black or wear a Burqua to be discriminasted against, regardless of how long you have lived there and how well integreted saddely.

Gorionine am glad you brought this up because you have first hand experience sadly. Was going to mention it in my first post but though it did not make any point.

It is something I noticed too when I lived in switzerland.(spent my childhood in a suburb of Bern). Italian swiss were definitely second class citizens.

That Wikipedia article mentioned above is a disgrace, and reads like a partisan rant rather than a neutral piece - see the discussion and history tabs on that page for a little bit of balance, particularly on the Sweden section.

wikipedia?
anything more substantial?

Riven - re apostasy in Quran:

4:89 But if they turn back (from Islam), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them,

That is pretty clear, imho.

And of course there is also the myriad references to killing Muslims who reject Islam in the Hadith, for example:

All the Hadith below are from Bukhari, the most trusted of hadith collectors.

52:260 Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him

83:37 Allah's Apostle never killed anyone except in one of the following three situations: (1) A person who killed somebody unjustly, was killed (in Qisas,) (2) a married person who committed illegal sexual intercourse and (3) a man who fought against Allah and His Apostle and deserted Islam and became an apostate."

etc etc

bloss - re "Morocco is about as good as it gets: and even there, it is illegal for a Muslim to convert to another religion; it isalso illegal to distribute material for religions other than Islam... If that's the best we can get, it sort of underlines the point, doesn't it?"

The only point that statement underlines is that you haven't read the thread.

If you had, you would see myriad mentions of a secular Muslim country called Turkey where a Muslim can convert to whatever religion his heart desires. Where there are Turkish Jehovah's Witnesses (formerly Muslim, obviously) knocking on doors. Where there are ads in the paper that go "Have your read the Bible?".

Can we now stop with the "All those Muslim countries are so intolerant, why should we be any different?" argument?

TheShriekingHarpy to try to compare Switzerland's neutral role in the war with the British role is unbelievable! Switzerland... hmmmm how many dead? How many soldiers lost lives? How many widows? How many widowers? How many bombs dropped on your fine country? Of course we had a small handful of appeasers and collaborators but not the whole country!

Head right up in the clouds. I've been to Switzerland and it is more removed from the problems of the rest of the world than any where I've ever been. Britain suffered horrendously in the war and made tremendous sacrifices.

Switzerland made tremendous amounts of dosh and is still poking away the owners of some of it now. Shocking.

I still say - no integrity. If the Swiss had integrity the people would have demanded that reparation and apology be made.

Message withdrawn

bloss - The view that "all" Muslim countries are so intolerant of other religions and hence Switzerland (and UK?) has no obligation to be accommodating of Muslims has been aired a few times on this thread now. You didn't exactly say that, but did say if Morocco "is the best we can get, it sort of underlines the point, doesn't it?"

And I told you that you are wrong, Morocco is NOT "the best we can get". Turkey is 99% Muslim and yet tolerant of people of other faiths, who worship as they please, in their churches, synagogues etc.

"Tolerant Muslim countries? Well, the best suggestion you've made is Morocco"

You are reading things that aren't there. I haven't said anything about Morocco. My "suggestion" was Turkey. And it is very demonstrably tolerant of other faiths.

"And Turkey - I've addressed the point before, but I'll say it again: the only reason there is any religious freedom at all is because the government is as non-Muslim as you can get: it is aggressively secular."

It is not the government that is secular (government is actually rather Islamist at the moment) but the COUNTRY itself. Turkey's constitution starts with these points:

Article 2: Characteristics of the Republic
c1. The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular (...) state

Article 4: Irrevocable Provisions
c1. (...) the provisions in Article 2 on the characteristics of the Republic (...) shall not be amended, nor shall their amendment be proposed.

In other words, it is a Muslim country that will always be secular, regardless of the leanings of a particular government in time.

"But even in Turkey, there is not full religious freedom - you can't be a believing Muslim woman who feels a religious obligation to wear a veil and still get a university degree..."

Ho ho ho. You have given up trying to prove Turkey is not tolerant to other faiths and now you are trying to say Turkey is not tolerant to Islam

You don't get the meaning of the word "secular", do you? Understandably, perhaps, since your state actually has a religion and your schools all have Christian ceremonies.

France is also a secular country. In France, as well, you can't go to a state university with a veil. Yet I don't see anyone here booing France for being such an intolerant place, to be condemned for being oh so backward

Message withdrawn

It is a Muslim country and hence a perfectly valid counterexample to those who say there are no Muslim countries who are tolerant to people of other faiths. (That is the subject of this thread, remember? Tolerance to minority religions)

disappointing, no one commented on the shift from minarets to holocaust!

Discussion turning into an ego fight again.....

This is all very sad.All this blathering about religion.I work with many Moslem people and their religion is not an issue AT ALL,they pray to Allah when it is required.They work very hard for very little recompense as do theri Christian/jewish peers.They are working for our own NHS.

All this stuff is crap.

We should be very grateful that there are Moslem/jewish/christian doctors to look after our sick people in the nhs.Otherwise we would be stuffed.

Pointless argument, bloss. To achieve true religious freedom in the modern western sense (ie freedom from, or equality) any state would have to be secular, because once one religion is favoured, others are automatically second. As is the case in Britain.

Algeria also has a secular constituion by the way. There are more Muslim countries than just Morocco and Saudi. And the tolerance of Turkei and intolerance of Saudi are due to their local cultures. Ridiculous to lump them together as "muslim countries."

Nightbird, I never felt disfavoured or second as a Muslim in Britain, it is one of the reasons I am here rather than Switzerland where I was born and grew up!

DH would never be allowed to pray at work or have time to go to the mosque back homme but it has never been a problem here as long as he works the weekly amount of hours he is supposed to.

I got called "paki" for the first time yesterday and it does not change my opinion about Britain as I see that as an isolated incident from on stupid individual.

I did not give much detail about why I felt a second class citizen in Switzerland (long before I became a Muslim) but it was not a case of "just" being called "Sale ritale" ("Dirty + slang word for Italian"). It was the case or an entire village working toward sinking my dads buisness because it would surely not have been fair that a foreigner (my dad came to Switzerland when he was 14 and is now 70) might do well. He became a Swiss Citizen in 1988 but is still not Swiss enough even though active in local politics and community projects, go figure!)