Towers of Islam: Swiss to Vote on Minarets

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A quote from The Guardian, 8 July 2008
 
Far right groups in Switzerland have collected enough signatures to force a nationwide referendum on banning minarets, the distinctive towers of Islamic architecture. In what is being seen as a sign of growing Islamophobia in Europe, more than 100,000 Swiss citizens signed a petition to halt the construction of minarets. […]
 
The petition was launched by Ulrich Schlüer an MP from the controversial Swiss People's party, […] The president of Switzerland, Pascal Couchepin, said the government would recommend that voters rejected the proposed minaret ban.
 
The organisers of the petition argue that the minarets, which are used on mosques, are a symbol of political and religious claims to power, not just a religious sign. […] If Schlüer's camp wins the referendum, the Swiss parliament must pass a law enshrining a minaret construction ban in the constitution. […]
 
More than 310,000 of Switzerland's 7.5 million population are Muslims, according to the federal statistical office. The UN expert on racism, Doudou Diene, has said the campaign is evidence of an "ever-increasing trend" toward anti-Islamic actions in Europe.
 
 
A quote from the BBC, 28 May 2007
 
"We don't have anything against Muslims," said Oskar Freysinger, member of parliament for the Swiss People's Party. "But we don't want minarets. The minaret is a symbol of a political and aggressive Islam, it's a symbol of Islamic law. The minute you have minarets in Europe it means Islam will have taken over." […] "We have our civil laws here," insisted Mr Freysinger. "Banning minarets would send a clear signal that our European laws, our Swiss laws, have to be accepted. And if you want to live here, you must accept them. If you don't, then go back."
 
 
A quote from Swissinfo, 8 July 2008
 
The centre-right Christian Democratic Party with its traditional Catholic background has called the idea of banning minarets unconstitutional, dangerous and stupid. The country's association of Protestant churches has rejected it as divisive.
 
Marcel Stüssi, a researcher at Lucerne University […] says any ban would be incompatible with articles of international law to which Switzerland is a signatory. In the event that Swiss voters were to ban minarets, any of the 107 other signatories to the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties of 1969 could launch action against Switzerland.

Any Christian churches being built in Saudi Arabia?......

......and, that ought to be the criterion. Islam will erect its mosques in Europe where they can with the permission of the lefty anti-native elites while throughout the Islamic world any religion of The Other is denied or being obliviated.  Ask the Copts in Egypt how their lives are going.

 

Bravo Brave Swiss....

Stand your ground...Limit the number of mosques..Limit the size...and legislate against the sound pollution of calling to prayer...iT IS A BEGINNING and one that other countries will wish they had taken....

A beacon of hope

This is why the liberal-left political elite who hold power in most western countries [including, no doubt, many of that ilk in Switzerland itself] detest the Swiss democratic model. Government by referenda ensures that it is the will of the people that prevails and not the will of power-crazed, politically-correct Leftists. Conservatism is naturally built into this system. Revolutionary forces of the kind given free reign across the West since the 1960s -  those hell-bent on destroying the status quo and Christian civilisation, are, largely, kept at bay. May God save Switzerland as an example to us all.