“means the will of the people can be quickly discovered.”

I don’t know if we can say it represents the will of the people because it had a 53% turnout of which 57% voted in favour. Polls before the actual referendum showed that the new law would not pass. It certainly violates religious freedom because Muslims are unable to design their houses of worship they way they want to and it certainly is religious discrimination because no other architectural feature has been banned by the Constitution except the one that Muslims use to beautify their place of worship. The question is: why Muslims only?

Local construction laws already ensured that minarets wouldn’t look out of place where they were built, and an analysis of the side in favour of banning minarets shows that it was classic Islamophobic fearmongering that was to blame for the result. Under the previous laws no one was allowed to built whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted so the new referendum was definitely unnecessary and launched by the Swiss equivalent of the BNP only to raise fears about Islam.

And there is certain hypocrisy among the Islamophobes as Pakistani restrictions on Ahmadi places of worship are “Islamofascism” while the Swiss restrictions on Muslim places of worship are “democratic”.

@Grace

Okay, I’m not sure exactly what you mean by that. So do you support us or Robert Spencer? If you support the latter, you really need to do your research.

@JT, “Doesn’t make it a correct decision”

It doesn’t but democracy can do that and the swiss democracy with their referendum system means the will of the people can be quickly discovered.

I don’t believe it does violate religious freedom, muslims in Switzerland can still practice islam and they can still build mosques.

I am not aware of any rights enshrined in international law stating people have a right to their choice of architecture wherever and whenever they want.

However, the minaret law isn’t cast in stone and can be overturned if put to another referendum in the future and if the people for the building of minarets can make a good enough case to bring enough people on to their side.

The following has been mentioned previously on Loonwatch, but a reminder of Robert Spencer’s motivations and statements is always a good idea:

Firstly, Robert Spencer is currently not being completely honest about the real motivations for his own actions. This has not always been the case; Spencer has previously publicly admitted that his extreme hostility towards Muslims and Islam is actually motivated by his own Christian fundamentalism, specifically his vested interests as a Catholic. In an interview with the Washington Times in 2003, Spencer openly stated that he regards Islam as the (Catholic) Church’s “chief rival in terms of religion” and that this is one of the main motivations for his anti-Islam propaganda efforts: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003/dec/1/20031201-091332-2655r/?page=all#pagebreak.

Secondly, a professional journalist has very effectively documented the practically identical propaganda of Robert Spencer and Der Sturmer’s Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher, as originally detailed here: http://middleclassdub.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/islamophobia-and-antisemitism-same.html :

1. Muslims/Jews have a religious duty to conquer the world.

Julius Streicher.

Julius Streicher wasn’t a member of the Nazi military and he also wasn’t involved in planning the Holocaust. Furthermore, as you can see in point 10 above regarding “incitement to violence”, Streicher used exactly the same disingenuous argument in his own defence that Robert Spencer has used.

Nevertheless, during the Nuremburg Trials after WW2, the victorious Allied powers found Julius Streicher guilty of crimes against humanity for inciting people to actively persecute Jews and for effectively laying the groundwork for the Holocaust as a result of his speeches and articles (“speaking, writing and preaching hatred of the Jews…..week after week, month after month”, as the judgement against Streicher stated). Full details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher#Trial_and_execution

“Also, halal and kosher slaughtering is illegal in Switzerland since the 1890s.”

But halal and kosher meat isn’t banned in Switzerland.

“The Hijab is banned in some European countries but THROUGHOUT the Muslim world nuns may cover themselves in their modest black-and-white religious garments.”

The hijab, as in hair scarf isn’t banned in Europe, only face covering in public places and it includes items such as full face motorcycle helmets when not riding a motorcycle.

“THROUGHOUT the Muslim world nuns may cover themselves in their modest black-and-white religious garments.”

Do you get many nuns in Saudi Arabia? I have never seen a nun wearing a face covering either and as that is what is banned in some places the comparison is spurious.

The Swiss held a referendum on the building of new minarets, it was a democratic decision. Mosques don’t need minarets and as far as I am aware there is no ban on building mosques in Switzerland.

“Switzerland banned minarets because they want to keep switzerland looking swiss”

As I mentioned to you before, that’s rubbish:
http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/05/juan-cole-sarkozys-loss-in-part-due-to-his-islamophobia/#comment-171293

It is not an innocent debate on architecture. The ban was motivated by Islamophobia. Local construction laws are already in effect to prevent people from building things that don’t fit in with the surroundings. And there are only 4 minarets in the country anyway and should someone want to build one, with his own money and on his own property, and the local council are fine with it, then no one should be complaining.

Certainly, there doesn’t need to be a national referendum or an amendment to the Swiss constitution on this. Countries worldwide amend their constitutions with important new laws and have referendums on important matters, but the Swiss go out to the polls just to make sure a tiny minority is unable to build their houses of worship the way they want to.

If the only motivation was to keep the country “looking Swiss”, then they would have also banned a lot of non-Swiss buildings like McDonald’s, Starbucks etc. It’s no coincidence they picked minarets at a time when fear and hatred of Islam/Muslims is common.

Also, halal and kosher slaughtering is illegal in Switzerland since the 1890s.

@Steve

Banning minarets because they want to keep it looking “Swiss”? there are giant church towers with bells in them even though the country has NEVER voted to limit the construction of certain aspects of Hindu, Jewsih, Christian, and Buddhist houses of worship, keepin’ it “looking Swiss” seems to me like Orwellian for “anything that has nothing to do with Islam”.

They mount crosses in PAKISTAN to help symbolize Christian self-determination yet minartes are banned in Switzerland.

Europeans are encouraged to insult the prophet Muhammad to protect their “freedom of speech” yet holocaust denial is punishable with JAIL time and never has anyone seen such bleeding heart theatrics for Sylvia Stolz when she was on trial for calling the Holocaust the “biggest lie in history” than we did when Geert Wilders when HE was on trial for that moronic “Fitna” film (that he cowered out of debating the Dutch Muslim Broadcasting Association) or the the DECADES when Holocaust denial was in the European penal codes (anyone who denies the Holocaust is a complete LOON in our books aswell but why aren’t people taking the double-edged sword of freedom of speech in its ENTIRETY rather than when it suits a specific purpose? HYPOCRISY!), furthermore no mainstream cleric has encouraged Muslims to blaspheme Jesus or other religious figures.

The Hijab is banned in some European countries but THROUGHOUT the Muslim world nuns may cover themselves in their modest black-and-white religious garments.

Excuse us Islamist/Multicultural/Terrorist-sympathizing/Marxists, Steve, for delianated some of these hypocrisies

@Emperor

Speaking of anti Muslim blogs. In addition to this, Charles Johnson just posted a story on one of Geller’s latest rant.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/40475_A_Pamela_Geller_Classic-_How_Else_Culd_an_Unqualfied_Bitter_Ameria_Hater_Hold_the_Eat_in_Obama_Office

@Jack Cope

Excellent response to Steve.

Honestly, I haven’t read the article and probably won’t any time soon. Yes, I find insulting and demeaning, but Spencer is all rather passé these days. Not only is he repetitive, but there are far more inflammatory writers than him around. What worries me far more is the fact that we are normalizing hate speech. We have become accustomed to it. Muslims are pretty much one of the only groups about whom one can make socially acceptable blanket statements about. This is not to say that racism against blacks and Latinos is gone in America, but rather, its no longer socially acceptable to publicly state hatred against ‘ni**ers’ and ‘sp*cs.’ You don’t see the grand wizard of the KKK appearing on Fox News as a talking head. Racism against them, when it is openly voiced, is far more subtle.

Not so with anti-Muslim bigotry, which is as much racism as it is prejudice against religion and culture. Anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Asian sentiments (and yes, I group them together because they are all intertwined) are given vile form on public airwaves, national headlines and even in politics. People barely hide their resentment when they talk about ‘camel jockies,’ ‘ragheads’ and ‘sand n*ggers.’ They compare women to garbage bags, then assault them for wearing hijab. They advocate endless war with Afghanistan, with Iraq, with Iran, with Yemen, with Somalia, with Syria… and indeed, we Muslims are collectively blamed for any crime ever committed by a fellow Muslim, whether centuries ago or thousands of miles away.

And yes, there are plenty of incidents of hate speech, discrimination and even outright assault or (worse) murder directed against blacks, against Latinos, against others. But the key difference is the amount of acceptance of it. Anti-black racism is seldom conveyed in national headlines. It seldom enters into political discourse. The KKK, the Church of the World Creator, the neo-Nazis… they are all (rightfully) marginalized as criminals and losers. Yet at the same time, political parties like SOIA and EDL are treated as legitimate, nay, completely reasonable reactions against the spectre of ‘immigration’ and ‘multiculturalism.’ People like Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are hailed as heroes, even invited to speak on the national news. When was the last time you saw a Muslim leader (other than that degenerate freak Anjem Choudhury) treated the same way?

Hell, countries have actually passed laws restricting (or outright banning) wearing hijab or constructing minarets or selling halal meat. That should be scary to everyone. The fact that governments are seriously contemplating suppressing their own citizens religious freedom? And we are not talking about dictatorships like Burma or Saudi Arabia either. We are talking about supposedly democratic and ‘enlightened’ western countries. If this sort of hatred can be normalized, then what next? In the US, we have seen the military talk about treating the religion of Islam itself as an enemy, nuking Mecca and reducing the religion to ‘cult’ status. And the NY police have spied on Muslims, even out of state! Might we see western governments going so far as to ban or severely restrict the practice of Islam? Ban conversions? Force people not to celebrate Ramazan or go on hajj or even own the Qur’an? This is exactly the sort of hatred that Spencer and company WANT to engender.

As far as our friend Steve is concerned, have you ever actually READ anything that Spencer wrote? This is the same man who joined a FB page calling for genocide against the Turks and wrote that the West should be secretly rejoicing over every Muslim death. I believe he is also the one who wrote that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, though I could be wrong. Like I said, his writing is so hackneyed and overwrought that its little different from your typical anonymous yahoo ranting about ‘dem evil MOOSLIMZ’ on any other blog. You may also recall that Matthew Hale, head of the white supremacist “Church” of the World Creator, encouraged one of his followers named Benjamin Smith to go on a shooting spree, then denied endorsing violence. He still wound up in jail, and then had his sentence compounded when he tried to solicit the murder of a federal judge.

Spencer is of the same ilk as Matthew Hale. After a decade or so, his proverbial fifteen minutes of fame will be up, and people will forget about him. Hell, most of his followers will disavow ever supporting him or reading his book, because it will be just as embarrassing as admitting you were pro-segregation or pro-Nazi back in the day. I only hope we Muslims do not have to endure any more hardships because of Spencer, Geller and their violent goons. As for them, well quite frankly I don’t really care what happens to them. They are rotten, vile human beings, less than that even. They can starve in a gutter and I wouldn’t lift a finger to help them. There are far, far more worthy causes in this life.

Steve, North Korea calls itself a ‘Democratic Republic’…

Mr Spencer was quoted by Breivik and one only has to take a look at some of the forums and discussion groups out there to see some very nasty people quoting him. Granted, you can’t always be responsible for what your followers do but they claim that ‘Islam incites violence’; why can’t we claim the same for them? Plus he openly associates with people like the EDL, enough said.

They could not do anything, short of appearing in Klan robes, to make themselves look more foolish.