A minaret, of which only four exist in Switzerland.
On the 30th November 2009, Swiss citizens approved a new law which will forbid the building of new minarets all over the Swiss territory. The result, with 57% of positive votes, came as a surprise; especially as all the polls predicted only 37% to 43% of citizens in favour of this new law, which means that many people were ashamed to say openly that they intended to approve it.
Swiss citizens have the right to propose new laws if a minimum of 100 000 signatures are collected. Usually, around 10 such laws are debated every year but only 17 were approved since 1893, and a score of 57% has never been reached over the last two decades.
As much disinformation and highly emotional reactions may occur, especially in the Muslim World, it’s important to make clear a certain number of points.
Even if the debate before the vote was clearly trying to link "refusing minarets" to "refusing Muslims", a majority is calling for good relations to be maintained with our Muslim neighbours.
Muslim believers will continue to have full rights to practice their religion, as long as they do not break other civil laws, e.g. respecting neighbourhood… We estimate their number between 300,000 and 350,000, with about 10% attending regularly a mosque.
The four existing mosques with minarets, which have no right to launch a prayer call, are not concerned by this law. It is out of the question to demolish the existing minarets. Around 200 existing mosques will continue to function and new mosques can be built if they respect the rules which apply to any other building, including churches.
There is still a big debate in Switzerland to decide whether this law is violating the freedom of religion. Those who approved this law think that Muslims still have full rights to practice and propagate their religion; the opposing party feels that now we are no longer an example of tolerance and have lost our right to claim any freedom for Christian believers in the Muslim World. In fine, a group who wants to build a mosque with a minaret could claim this right before the European Human Rights Court and, depending on their decision, could have a chance to pass by this law.
The fact that more than 100,000 people signed the referendum -- and that a majority approved it -- indicates clearly that a majority of Swiss citizens are concerned about the rapid growth of the number of Muslims, who entered the country especially during and after the Yugoslav civil war. The choice to forbid the building of minarets was probably considered by the majority as the less damageable way to put a halt to a constant flow of claims from a very active (and sometimes aggressive) Muslim minority, for "Hallal" meat in schools, separation of boys and girls in swimming pools, separate cemeteries and other venues.
*Minarets are tall slender towers attached to a mosque, from which the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer.
