Switzerland/Europe - minarets referendum

European far right pushes for more minaret referendums

Article published on the 2009-11-30 Latest update 2009-11-30 15:45 TU

Swiss Minister of Justice and Police Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf speaks to media during a news conference on the results of the vote
(Photo: Reuters)

Far-right parties in France and the Netherlands on Monday called for referendums over minaret construction after Switzerland’s vote to ban minarets being built. Mainstream politicians have condemned the referendum result.

"What is possible in Switzerland, should be able to happen here," Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders declared on his website. "We will call for our government to make this referendum possible in the Netherlands." 

In France the National Front's  Marine Le Pen called for a broader vote on  immigration.

"I would like a national referendum on immigration and community politics," she told the AFP news agency. "Because the problem is deeper and more serious than a simple question of  a minaret."

"Muslims are entitled to a place of worship but on two conditions," she added. "Firstly that they don't call for obviously visible signs such as minarets and that they should be exclusively financed by those who worship the faith and not public funds."

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner earlier described the vote as “an expression of intolerance”.

“If we can’t build minarets, that means we are oppressing a religion,” he told French radio RTL.

France has Europe’s largest Muslim population leading to debates on relations between the country's different communities.

In Italy Foreign Affairs Minister Franco Frattini expressed the Italian government's "concern", while the Vatican also slammed the move.

Reaction was strong in Muslim-majority countries:

• In Indonesia, the leader of the country's biggest Muslim group, Nahdlatal Ulama, condemned the Swiss vote describing it as a manifestation of religious hatred;
• In Egypt, Mufti Alo Gomaa, the government’s official interpreter of Islamic law, referred to the ban as an “insult” to Muslims across the world and “an attack on freedom of beliefs”;
• In Pakistan, the Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami slammed the vote, with its vice-president Khurshid Ahmad saying it "reflects extreme Islamophobia among people in the West".

In Switzerland, the imam of the country's largest mosque, appealed to the world's Muslims for calm.

"It will not help to abandon trade or ties with Switzerland," said Youssef Ibram, imam at the Geneva mosque which was vandalised several times in the run-up to the vote.

“The most painful for us in not the minaret ban, but the sign sent by this vote. Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community,” Said Farhad Afshar, head of the Co-ordination of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland, where Muslims make up five per cent of the population.

Justice Minister  Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf  said the result “reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies”.

But she insited that, “It’ s not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture. Of that, the Federal Council gives its assurance.”