“Human rights shall not be the subject of a referendum. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently underlined that places of worship are an indispensable part of religion and freedom of conscience. It is a pity that Switzerland, which is the home of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, dared to ban the minarets,” Öztürk Türkdoğan, the chairman of the Human Rights Association (İHD), told Today's Zaman.
The secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, also expressed disappointment and concern about the result of the referendum. An OIC statement referred to the ban as “an unfortunate development” that would tarnish the image of Switzerland as a country which has respect for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights. The statement also said the referendum was a recent example of the “growing anti-Islamic incitements in Europe by the extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist, scaremongering ultra-right politicians who reign over common sense, wisdom and universal values.”
The referendum by the nationalist Swiss People's Party labeled minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation. The ban was approved by 57.5 percent of some 2.67 million voters. The vote against it was 42.5 percent. Only four of the 26 cantons -- or provinces -- opposed the initiative, giving double the approval required to make it part of the Swiss constitution. Muslims account for about 6 percent of Switzerland's population of 7.5 million people. Many are refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, and about one in 10 actively practices their religion, the government says.
 A demonstrator holding a mock Swiss assault rifle joins a protest against the acceptance of a minaret ban during a rally in Helvetia Square in Zurich on Sunday. |
“The Swiss have failed to give a clear signal for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights,” said Omar Al-Rawi, integration representative of the Islamic Denomination in Austria, which said its reaction was “grief and deep disappointment.”
The country’s four standing minarets, which will not be affected by the ban, do not traditionally broadcast the call to prayer outside their own buildings.
The sponsors of the initiative provoked complaints of prejudice from local officials and human rights groups with campaign posters that showed minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman.
One of the arguments used by the backers of the ban was Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s comparison of mosques to Islam’s military barracks and called “the minarets our bayonets,” while quoting a poem which cost him six months in prison in 1999 while he was the mayor of İstanbul.
“Not only was the referendum itself, but also the propaganda used by the backers of the ban, based on a discourse of hate and xenophobia. The Swiss public should ask itself where they are heading to and the Muslims should ask themselves why Islam is perceived as a danger,” Türkdoğan underlined.
Yılmaz Ensaroğlu, a human rights activist and one of the founders of the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER), told Today’s Zaman that recent developments such as the minaret ban in Switzerland indicates that the West has not been able to absorb the human rights and freedoms it has acted as the champions of.
“Those kinds of decisions are bringing into question the sincerity of the West, while they intervene in other parts of the world in the name of human rights and democracy,” Ensaroğlu said.
He added that the hate discourse and racist language used in propaganda in the run-up to the referendum might have long-term effects and might harm the internal peace of the Swiss society.
He recalled that the UN Committee on Human Rights had clearly stated its concern that the ban is a discriminatory practice that violates fundamental human rights, including the freedom of religion.
In his message yesterday, OIC Secretary-General İhsanoğlu expressed his deep regret that at a time when the Muslim world and Muslim societies around the world are engaged in a struggle to fight extremism, Western societies are “hostage to extremists who exploit Islam as a scapegoat and a springboard to develop their own political agenda,” which in turn contributes to polarization and fragmentation in societies.
International reactions
France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, expressed shock at the ban which, he said, showed “intolerance” and should be reversed.
Katrin Göring-Eckardt of the German Green Party told German television that one could not put religious freedom to the vote. Eckardt, who is also chair of the Evangelical Church in Germany, said, “One had said it [the campaign] was about minarets, but in truth it was about freedom of religion.”
Egypt’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Ali Gomaa also condemned the decision to ban the construction of minarets, the Al Akhbar daily reported on Monday.
“We received this initiative in sorrow, and it is considered as a humiliation for the Muslim community in and out of Switzerland,” Gomaa said.
The mufti expressed concerns about the decision, which he said would deepen Muslims’ feelings of discrimination.
German newspaper Berliner Kurier used the headline, “57.5 percent of the Alpine country destroys its reputation” for the minaret story.
“The sponsors of the ban have achieved something everyone wanted to prevent, and that is to influence and change relations with Muslims and their social integration in a negative way,” said Taner Hatipoğlu, the president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Zurich.
International human rights organizations such as Amnesty International (AI) also criticized the decision. In a written statement AI said the vote violated freedom of religion and would probably be overturned by the Swiss supreme court or the European Court of Human Rights.
The seven-member cabinet that heads the Swiss government spoke out strongly against the initiative, but the government said it accepted the vote and would impose an immediate ban on minaret construction.
It said, “Muslims in Switzerland are able to practice their religion alone or in community with others, and live according to their beliefs just as before.” The Swiss government took the unusual step of issuing its press release in Arabic as well as German, French, Italian and English.
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