Switzerland Projection: Swiss vote to ban new minarets

[Heimdallr]

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UPDATED 0645-CST Sunday 29 Nov 2009

GENEVA – Swiss television says projections based on ballot results show Switzerland's voters have approved move to ban the construction of minarets, which right-wing parties have labeled as symbols of militant Islam.

The projections contracted by state-owned television DRS say the Swiss swung massively in recent days from 37 percent support in pre-vote polls to 59 percent in the actual voting.

Claude Longchamp, leader of the widely respected gfs.bern polling institute, says the projection also forecasts approval by more than half the country's 26 cantons, meaning it will become a constitutional amendment.

The initiative was led by the nationalist Swiss People's Party, the country's largest.

Projections were based on actual voting returns.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss voters are deciding in a referendum Sunday whether to accept a ban on the construction of minarets, which right-wing parties regard as symbols of militant Islam.

The move — led by the Swiss People's Party, which has campaigned in previous years against immigrants — has stirred fears of boycotts and violent reactions from Muslim countries.

Polls indicate growing support for the proposal, but doubt remains about whether it will pass. The seven-member Cabinet that heads the Swiss government has spoken out strongly against the initiative.

Muslims have been keeping a low profile so far. Still, the Geneva Mosque was vandalized Thursday when someone threw a pot of pink paint at the entrance.

Earlier this month, a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating a muezzin's call to prayer, and vandals damaged a mosaic when they threw cobble stones at the building.

Business leaders say a ban on minarets, the distinctive spires attached to mosques, would be disastrous for the Swiss economy because it could offend wealthy Muslims who bank in Switzerland, buy the country's luxury goods and visit its resorts.

The vote taps into the anxieties about Muslims that have been rippling through Europe in recent years, ranging from French fears of women in body veils to Dutch alarm over the murder by a Muslim fanatic of a filmmaker who made a documentary that criticized Islam.

Local officials and rights defenders have objected to the campaign posters, which show minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman.

Minarets are typically built next to mosques for religious leaders to call the faithful to prayer, but they are not used for that in Switzerland. The four minarets already attached to mosques in the country will remain even if the referendum passes.

Muslims make up about 6 percent of Switzerland's 7.5 million population, many of them refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Fewer than 13 percent practice their religion, the government says.

A survey by the respected polling institute gfs.bern last week indicated that 53 percent of voters oppose the initiative, although support for it has grown by 3 percentage points to 37 percent since last month. Typically in Switzerland the margins on such votes narrow as balloting nears. Ten percent of the 1,213 people polled were undecided. The survey had an error margin of 2.9 percent.

Source: AP >>> Projection: Swiss vote to ban new minarets (0645-CST Sunday 29 Nov 2009)

In this Nov. 4, 2009 file photo a man passes by a poster of the right-
wing Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC) which shows a woman wearing a
burqa against a background of Swiss flag upon which several minarets
resemble missiles at the central station in Geneva, Switzerland. An
attempt to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland has set off
an emotional debate on Islam in the Alpine nation, stirring fears of
boycotts from Muslim countries and of violent reactions.

[Breydel]

This will be good for stronger polarization.

[Carnyx]

tsr.ch - la carte des votations

[Faran]

A minaret is not a mosque.
Switzerland will tolerate those anyway, so liberals shouldn't get so alarmed.

[Carnyx]

Originally Posted by Faran

A minaret is not a mosque.
Switzerland will tolerate those anyway, so liberals shouldn't get so alarmed.

Yes. And Switzerland will keep on tolerating Muslims.

[CristianoViejo]

As the whole europe... until will be to late and impossible to kick the "new europeans".

[Aptrgangr]

Switzerland 'approves minaret ban'

GENEVA (AFP) – Over 57 percent of Swiss voters on Sunday approved a blanket ban on the construction of Muslim minarets, according to official results posted by Swiss news agency ATS.
A final tally of 26 cantons indicates that 57.5 percent of the population have voted in favour of the ban on minarets -- the turrets or towers attached on mosques from where Muslims are called to prayer.
Only four cantons rejected the proposal brought by Switzerland's biggest party -- the Swiss People's Party (SVP), which claims that minarets symbolise a "political-religious claim to power."
The SVP had forced a referendum under Swiss regulations on the issue after collecting 100,000 signatures within 18 months from eligible voters.
The Swiss government was firmly against the call, arguing that accepting a ban would bring about "incomprehension overseas and harm Switzerland's image."
Switzerland has an uneasy relationship with its Muslim population of some 400,000 in a country of 7.5 million people. Islam is the second largest religion here after Christianity.

Switzerland 'approves minaret ban' - Yahoo! News

The interesting aspect is despite teh massive campaigns of the media, government, major parties, churches "human rights organizations", Jewish organizations etc. people still did not vote like they were told to. There will be, of course, no plebiscite about the overdue repatriation of Muslims though. As meaningless the ban of minarets is (it is only temporarily anyways), it is nice to see leftists howl in anger about this result.

[Aptrgangr]

Bildt blasts 'prejudice' of Swiss minaret ban

Published: 30 Nov 09 11:02 CET

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on Monday slammed Switzerland's referendum to ban the construction of minarets on mosques in the Alpine country.



"It's an expression of quite a bit of prejudice and maybe even fear, but it is clear that it is a negative signal in every way, there's no doubt about it," Bildt, whose country holds the current European Union presidency, told Svergies Radio (SR).

Swiss voters on Sunday approved by a majority of 57.5 percent a ban on minarets in a referendum.

Bildt said he found it odd that such a decision was put to a referendum.

"Normally Sweden and other countries have city planners that decide this kind of issue. To decide this kind of issue in a referendum seems very strange to me," he said.

Bildt blasts 'prejudice' of Swiss minaret ban - The Local

Swiss minaret ban sparks heated German debate

Published: 30 Nov 09 09:07 CET
Updated: 30 Nov 09 10:21 CET

The Swiss vote on Sunday to ban mosques with minarets has spurred heated debate in neighbouring Germany, where the Muslim population's plans to build houses of worship has created controversy in the past.



Signalling increased fears of the so-called “Islamification” of their country, Swiss citizens voted overwhelmingly to enact a constitutional ban on constructing minarets at mosques. The two right-wing parties that brought the issue to vote called the towers a symbol of Islam's supposedly political agenda.

Head of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD) Kenan Kolat told Berlin daily Berliner Zeitung that the decision was “very regrettable,” adding that basic rights such as religious freedom should not be allowed to come to popular vote.

“A minaret belongs to a mosque,” Kolat said.

But Wolfgang Bosbach, a conservative Christian Democrat heading the parliamentary committee on interior policy, said that the vote should be taken seriously. He told daily Hamburger Abendblatt on Monday that the vote reflects a widely held fear of Islam within German society – though he said German laws provided enough solutions for practical decisions about minaret construction.

“But there are spectacular plans for large structures, such as in Cologne’s Ehrenfeld district or in Duisburg-Marxloh, for which there is a lot of resistance simply because of the size,” he told the paper.

Bosbach added that is “possible that some of these large buildings were planned to signal how strong Islam has become in Germany.”

But Sebastian Edathy from the opposition Social Democrats told Berliner Zeitung that the majority vote was “very problematic,” adding that countries guaranteeing religious freedom must allow members of different faiths to build houses of worship.

Meanwhile Islamic scholar Katajun Amipur told daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger that the referendum threatened to spark Islamophobia throughout Europe.

“If this initiative triggers a dynamic in other European countries – and the danger is there – then the Muslims will have no place in Europe in the end,” she said.

The architect in charge of a controversial new Cologne mosque Paul Böhm called the decision “undemocratic” and “unintelligent.”

Germany currently has some 206 mosques with minarets. Another 120 are being planned or are already under construction.

Swiss minaret ban sparks heated German debate - The Local

YouTube - Europe Will Become Muslim Eurabia Within 20 Years ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING

[CristianoViejo]

Spaniards opinion about the results, in the free 20 minutos diary, survey online:

Encuestas, déjanos tu voto - 20minutos.es


Impressive???

[Vale]

Originally Posted by CristianoViejo

As the whole europe... until will be to late and impossible to kick the "new europeans".

Indeed, they are decadent immoral cowards and they will allow anything, to rewrite the words of a freemasonic globalist; "never have so few, owed so little, to so many".

As for the ban itself this proves that what I have been saying about direct democracy is right, if only we had hardline nationalists/conservatives/traditonalists in power who would compose the right referendums; "should the invaders be thrown out of this nation?", "should the globalist traitors be taken to court and punished for their crimes?", "should banking benefit the people and not private interests?", "should the decadence be fought?", "should we get out of the EU?" etc.

[CristianoViejo]

Originally Posted by Vale

"should the invaders be thrown out of this nation?", "should the globalist traitors be taken to court and punished for their crimes?", "should banking benefit the people and not private interests?"

We all know the answers to those questions by majority of Europeans.

[Llywarch Hen]

Originally Posted by Carnyx

tsr.ch - la carte des votations

Interesting, thanks. I see that the French areas around Lake Geneva seem to be the least bothered by minarets. How to explain this? Conservatism among mountaineers? Leaking of nasty Jacobin ideas over the border? Easier brainwashing of urbanite lowlanders? Stronger 'us' instinct among Germans and Italians?

Is this a typical minaret style?

About as aesthetically pleasing, and harmonious with its environment, as a stab in the eye. Hard to see it as anything other than a vulgar display of insolence and seeming immunity.