Will Swiss Ban on Minarets Set a European Trend?

(Nov. 30) -- Switzerland's reputation as a land of tolerance and harmony took a hit on Sunday when its citizens overwhelmingly approved a ban on the construction of new mosque minarets. And with right-wing parties across Europe now calling for their own referendums, many are wondering whether Muslims in other nations could soon face similar prohibitions.

The Swiss referendum -- organized by the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) – saw 57.5 percent of voters back a proposal to outlaw the iconic Islamic towers, which are traditionally used to call Muslims to prayer. Voters in only four of the country's 23 cantons rejected the move. Switzerland's constitution will now be amended to include the line: "The construction of minarets is forbidden." But Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said, "The ban contradicts the European Convention on Human Rights," suggesting it could be quickly overturned.

Even if the law is eventually scrapped, the referendum has already caused international embarrassment for the neutral government, which -- together with mainstream political parties, national newspapers and the Vatican -- opposed the ban. France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was "a bit scandalized" by the vote, adding, "It is an expression of intolerance, and I detest intolerance." And the U.N.'s expert on religious freedom, Asma Jahangir, called the ban "a clear discrimination against members of the Muslim community in Switzerland."

However, few Swiss voters were thinking of Switzerland's international reputation when they headed to the polls. Instead, many had been won over by the SVP's controversial campaign, which argued that minarets are political symbols, not religious. The party claimed the Islamic turrets represented the beginning of sharia law and the forced oppression of women. One of the SVP's posters depicted a woman in a burka backed by minaret-shaped missiles rising from a Swiss flag.

"We're enormously happy. It is a victory for this people, this Switzerland, this freedom and those who want a democratic society," Walter Wobmann, the president of the SVP's anti-minaret committee, said in a victory speech. "We just want to stop further Islamization in Switzerland."

However, there are few signs that radical Islam is taking over the tiny Alpine nation. The country is home to four mosques with minarets. And although Switzerland's Muslim population has grown from 50,000 in 1980 to 350,000 today -- about 4 percent of the population -- many Swiss Muslims are non-mosque-going refugees from the former Yugoslavia.

"The most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote," said Farhad Afshar, head of the Coordination of Islamic Organizations in Switzerland. "Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community."

Many more European Muslims could soon be feeling that sense of rejection. The success of the SVP has led other right-wing parties to call for action against minarets. Dutch MP Geert Wilders' Freedom Party demanded a referendum in the Netherlands, saying the Swiss vote was "the first time that people in Europe have stood up to a form of Islamization." That cry was echoed by Mario Borghezio, an MP for Italy's Northern League in the European Parliament, who said, "The flag of a courageous Switzerland which wants to remain Christian is flying over a near-Islamized Europe."

Their chances of repeating the Swiss ban, though, are limited. The minaret proposal only went to the polls because of an unusual Swiss law that says a referendum can be forced if 100,000 people sign and present a petition to parliament. (The SVP proposal was signed by 150,000.)

The minaret isn't the only public symbol of Islamic faith to recently come under attack in Europe. France, home to the continent's largest Muslim population, banned veils and other ostensible symbols of religious affiliation from state schools in 2004. And following President Nicolas Sarkozy's declaration in June that the burka -- a garment that covers women from head to toe -- is a "sign of subservience," a parliamentary commission was set up to examine whether the item could be banned.

But in an editorial, The Times of London warned that further bans would damage the age-old foundations of European society. "In the name of defending the principles of a constitutional society against religious intolerance, Swiss voters have adopted intolerance," it said. "That is more than a paradox: it is a calumny."