Swiss vote on proposal to ban minarets

With thanks to the Islamization Watch:

The worry about Muslim boycotts is truly amazing – and it sends out one message – everything is expected from the West and nothing is expected from the Islamic world.

Do Christians/ westerners stop going to Egypt because the chief religious authority issues a fatwa saying that building churches is a sin and compared it to building a barn for dogs, cats and pigs? Maldives just passed a law to outlaw the building of Churches - it is extremely difficult or near impossible, if not impossible – to build churches or non-Muslim place of worship in most Muslim countries.

And then there are those who call you ”racist” - to ask or suggest that Muslims build some churches – in the Islamic world. But Islam is not a race…

GENEVA (AP)— The campaign posters are inflammatory: Minarets rising like missiles from the national flag.

A proposal championed by right-wing parties to ban minarets in Switzerland goes to a nationwide vote on Sunday in a referendum that has set off an emotional debate about national identity and stirred fears of boycotts and violent reactions from Muslim countries.

With tensions running high, the Geneva Mosque was vandalized Thursday by unidentified individuals who threw a pot of pink paint at the building’s entrance.

It was the third incident against the mosque this month: earlier, a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating a muezzin’s call to prayer, and vandals threw cobble stones at the building, damaging a mosaic.

Business leaders say a minaret ban would be disastrous for the Swiss economy because it could drive away wealthy Muslims who bank in Switzerland, buy the country’s luxury goods, and frequent its resorts.

The vote taps into anxieties about Muslims that have been rippling through Europe in recent years, ranging from French fears of women in body veils to Dutch alarm over the murder by a Muslim fanatic of a filmmaker who made a documentary that criticized Islam.

Polls indicate growing support for the proposal submitted by the anti-immigrant Swiss People’s Party, but it was doubtful it will gain enough momentum to pass. Muslims in Switzerland have kept a low profile, refraining from a counter-campaign.

“Switzerland’s good reputation as an open, tolerant and secure country may be lost and this would bring a blow to tourism,” said Swiss Hotel Association spokesman Thomas Allemann.