Muslim world shocked at Swiss minaret ban

Updated November 30, 2009 20:44:27

Switzerland's muslim community is in shock, after voters supported a proposed ban on the building of minarets.

Over 57 percent of voters at the referendum on the weekend wanted to ban minarets. The proposal was put forward by the Swiss People's Party, the largest in parliament, which claimed that minarets were a sign of islamisation. The Swiss Association of Muslim Organisations which represents Switzerland's 400-thousand Muslims, sees the the move as a backward step.

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Taner Hatipoglu, president of the Swiss Association of Muslim Organisations

HATIPOGLU: We are very disappointed as a Muslim community because the Muslim community in Switzerland is quite well intergrated, in comparison to the other countries in Europe and we don't have major problems in this country. We are living in peace with all the rest of the community, so therefore, this decision was really unexpected. Because we were hoping, the people will see the trust, the true things, and then so they will not accept this initiative, but unfortunately it happened differently.

LAM: As you say, the Muslims in Switzerland are well integrated, so why do you think 57 per cent of the electorate voted in favour to ban minarets?

HATIPOGLU: Major problem was the whole campaign of this referendum was not really in direct relation to the building of the minarets, but all around, all those other problems were mixed up and presented to the population. And this brought the people so far, that this islamophobia is very intensively increased in Switzerland. One very open example is we did have, over the last two weeks, two different mosque attacks which we had never experienced so far. So it shows that the people were communicating wrong things, like, for example, like they were saying the Muslims want to bring the Sharia into Switzerland. They are practising forced marriages and so on. They will overrule our (Swiss) laws and then they will eliminate the women's rights and so on. So they were bringing some confusing examples which seems to be frightening the non-Muslim communities.

LAM: Do you think that Islam has been misrepresented by the people who support this ban?

HATIPOGLU: Yeah exactly, it was put in a wrong light, in a wrong direction. And then, every Muslim in the country seems to be a potential terrorist, at the end, you see. The people hear this and if the people understand that the Muslim community becomes a danger for their selves, so they wanted to eliminate their rights as well.

LAM: The Swiss Justice Minister says the results of the referendum reflected the fear of Islamic fundamentalism. Has the Muslim community in Switzerland given their fellow Swiss any reasons to fear them?

HATIPOGLU: We are quite well integrated. There are some minor problems, but this is not in particular with the Muslim community, but there are some problems with the whole immigrant groups where also non-Muslims are there. But this time, they were focusing on the Muslim community itself and then also for example, the Minister for Justice said last week that these forced marriages are not practised only by some Muslim immigrants, but also some immigrants from other cultural, other religious areas. Because of the culture, they are doing this. There we may have also under the Muslim, such practices, which we are against it as well.

LAM: In practical terms, how will this ban on the building of new minarets, how will it affect they way Muslims worship?

HATIPOGLU: Actually, worshipping for the Muslims will not be changed so much, but what might happen is that if one of the Muslim communities really wants to make as a sign of where the mosque is, a minaret, then he has to go to the European Court for Human Rights to get allowance over that, because within Switzerland now, because it has given by referendum to the constitution, we don't have any chance anymore to solve the problem within Switzerland.

LAM: Do you think this is what the Muslim community in Switzerland might be planning to do to, take the case to the European Court of Human Rights?

HATIPOGLU: I can imagine, so there are no plans yet, but I can imagine one or other mosque which wanted to, because they are already two or three mosques which were applying for allowance for building the minarets.

LAM: Have there been any signs of hostility towards Muslims in Switzerland in recent times?

HATIPOGLU: This is what we have experienced in the last two weeks, actually attacking different mosques. This was the only one. We experienced some verbal attacks, but we hope that these attacks to the mosque, what we are experiencing in the last two weeks, hopefully will not continue, otherwise we are going to have really major problems here.