Minaret controversy in Switzerland
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The construction of minarets is, as of 2007, a subject of political controversy in Switzerland. Right-wing political circles are attempting to ban or block the construction of minarets at the municipal, cantonal and federal level.
There are currently two mosques with minarets in Switzerland, one in Zurich and one in Geneva, and the call to prayer is not made at either mosque[1]. According to official statistics, Muslims accounted for 4.3% of the total population in 2001.[2]
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[edit] Controversies surrounding individual projects
In 2005, local authorities blocked the construction of minarets in the Swiss cities Wangen bei Olten, Langenthal and Wil. In Langenthal, plans to build a small minaret were halted after thousands of objections from locals. The Wangen case is pending at the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland.[1]
[edit] Minaret ban initiatives
[edit] Federal constitutional amendment initiative
On May 1, 2007, members of the federal Swiss People's Party, currently the largest party in the Parliament of Switzerland, and the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland party begun an initiative to append to Article 72 of the Swiss Federal Constitution: "The construction of minarets is forbidden." The initiative must garner 100,000 signatures by November 1, 2008, to be put to a national referendum. Provided that the popular initiative passes all legal obstacles and it is eventually accepted by the people, it may come into force in 2010. For now, however, there is a constitutionally enforceable right to build minarets.
[edit] Arguments
According to the initiative committee, the minarets are not religious structures because they allegedly are not mentioned in the Qu'ran or Islamic scriptures, and are not included in all mosques. The committee claimed that a minaret was a symbol of political-religious power, and supported this allegation by a quote of current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a 1997 speech (then Mayor of Istanbul): "Mosques are our barracks, domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets, believers our soldiers. This holy army guards my religion." The committee argued that by allowing minarets, it would have to allow muezzins because of freedom of religion.[3]
[edit] Support
Ulrich Schlüer, member of the Swiss People's Party and head of the initiative, said on May 15, 2007: "We have no doubt that we'll reach the goal. We've now been collecting for a week and we've already got 10,000 signatures."[4]
A survey last year in Le Matin newspaper found that 43% of questioned French-speaking Swiss favoured a ban on minarets.[5]
[edit] Opposition
The move has shocked Switzerland's Muslims, many of whom have been campaigning for decades for more recognition for their faith.
Critics of the initiative say that a ban on minarets on religious grounds would go against the Swiss constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. Opponents are angling their attack on article 72 of the Swiss constitution, which allows the authorities to take appropriate measures to maintain the peace among different religious communities. Samuel Schmid, a cabinet minister for the party, has said he is against the initiative, warning it was taking his party colleagues down the "wrong road".[5]
The Swiss government seems extremely nervous about the prospect of militancy among Swiss Muslims; three cabinet ministers have already spoken out against the campaign to ban minarets. There is also a growing fear that the debate will damage Switzerland's traditionally good relations with the Arab world.[6]
From a legal perspective the initiative is controversial in its very nature because on the one hand Swiss citizens are sovereign and act as the ultimate supreme authority,[7] and on the other, they must respect material bars – deriving from human rights commitments – to Swiss constitutional amendments.[8] Not surprisingly, these material bars to absolute sovereignty, also known as jus cogens, are fiercely contested because they mean either more or less powers to the citizens and, indirectly, to the political parties.
Recent interpretations of jus cogens go further than the classic, and today little disputed, approach. For instance, the Swiss Federal Council wrote in its official comment on the total revision of the Federal Constitution of 1999 that ‘at least’ peremptory norms of international law must function as a material bar to constitutional amendments.[9] And the U.N. Human Rights Committee opined in its 24th general comment that some of the fundamental norms in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights possess the legal character and quality of jus cogens. According to the Human Rights Committee, these peremptory norms include, inter alia, the prohibition ‘to deny freedom of thought, conscience and religion’, as well as the prohibition ‘to deny to minorities the right to enjoy their own culture’, and to ‘profess their own religion’.[10]
In this respect the jurist Marcel Stuessi argues that if a ban on minarets was ever enacted, it would be incompatible with international human rights commitments. This is the case because to Stuessi reservations and derogations to the International Covenant are very likely to be impermissible and a termination of the Covenant unacceptable. Although these findings do not directly contribute to the legal construction of jus cogens, they a fortiori provide tangible arguments to legitimize the decision to hold the initiative invalid, and thus void. However, this ‘prospective effect approach’ should not be interpreted as meaning that every interference with rights encompassed by the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights provides such compelling indication for a subsequent invalidation of popular initiatives, rather it suggests that ‘each individual popular initiative should be assessed on its own merits including a conjectural analysis of its legal implications if enacted’ so Stuessi in his legal analysis.[11]
[edit] Cantonal initiative
On the cantonal level, the Zurich cantonal parliament is considering banning the construction of minarets across the canton. The decision came after parliament accepted an initiative from the rightwing Swiss People's Party calling for the canton's planning laws to be altered to forbid minarets. The move has been condemned by centre-left and centre-right parties as well as by a leading Muslim organisation in the canton.[citation needed]
[edit] Bibliography
- Ban on Minarets: On the Validity of a Controversial Swiss Popular Initiative (2008), , by Marcel Stuessi, research fellow at the University of Lucerne.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Minaret row rumbles on in Switzerland, SwissInfo.
- ^ International Religious Freedom Report 2006 Switzerland
- ^ Le minaret et sa signification (French), Comité d'initiative contre la construction de minarets. Translation from French flyer.
- ^ Swiss group plans minaret-ban, Al Jazeera English. May 15 2007.
- ^ a b Schmid says minaret ban is the "wrong road", SwissInfo.
- ^ Swiss move to ban minarets, BBC, May 28, 2007
- ^ Swiss Sovereignty under Article 139 of the Federal Constitution, Swiss Federal Administration, 2008
- ^ Bar to Popular Sovereignty, Swiss Federal Administration, 2008
- ^ Federal Paper (Bundesblatt) BBI 149 1996 Bd. I, Swiss Federal Administration, 2008
- ^ HRC General Comment Nr. 24, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights
- ^ Marcel Stuessi, Ban on Minarets: On the Validity of a Controversial Swiss Popular Initiative, The Berkeley Electronic Press, Berkeley 2008
[edit] External links
- http://www.minarets.ch Comité d'initiative contre la construction de minarets (French, German, Italian), 26 June 2007
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