Re: Minarets

On 29 Nov, 15:46, Sebastian Lisken <Sebastian.Lis...@Uni-Bielefeld-
deletethis.de> wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8385069.stm

I'm rather surprised and shocked and have just discussed this with
the people I live with here in Bern. My "landlady" did vote against
the ban on minarets but then she did go ahead and express her doubts
about Islam becoming too strong. And I do share some of the scepticism
of what Islam says about the role of women, or homosexuality, or
the freedom to make choices such as leaving the religion. But what
I can't get my head round is:

- How can a country that so far managed to keep the number of minarets
down to four in all of the country see the need to enact an outright
ban on them, when other legal means of restricting them are clearly
available?

- How can the voters follow a campaign one whose main arguments,
apparently, was the concern of Islamic law becoming a rule; what on
earth does the opportunity of building minarets, checked by planning
laws and the like, do to make a country's legal system incorporate
Islamic law?

- How can they choose to enact a rule that is against fundamental
rights such as freedom of religion, singles out just one of these
religions with such a restriction (aren't there legal principles
against laws singling out people or groups in that way), and even
put such a rule into their constitution?

We have probably not heard the end about this initiative.

I suppose Switzerland doesn't have to come under the legal principles.
The rule against minarets appears to be just a general attack on
incomers - something all humans seem to have a fear of.
The Yugoslavian followers of Islam who seem to be the majority of the
target group don't practice the sharia law that seems to be getting a
lot of attention.

The whole exercise has a stamp of extreme right-wing attitudes.
I hope it is suppressed by the majority of sensible Swiss voters.
.

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