Yep, 57% of the Swiss voted for a ban on minarets.

Personally I think it's a disgusting attack on religious freedoms. How would the west feel if Turkey banned church bells?

Your opinions?

I'm sorry, but Switzerland have banned a type of architecture? That's just stupid. What next, will they ban pagodas and murti statues? I'm an atheist and even I find this odd.

sorry whats a minoret?

It's a type of tower you generally find on mosques. They are actually quite pretty features to be honest.

and Switzerland bans these why? For a country who prides itself on being neutral, this is a pretty flarant attack agaisnt Islam.

My first thought....

"What do the Swiss have against puppets?"

After reading this thread....

There has to be more to this story right? I mean... the Swiss are supposed to be up their when it comes to personal freedoms....

People bag on the US for not having universal health care... but that's the kind of thing we'd never do. (Or at least i'd hope.)

I'm reserving judgment until i find out why though... maybe its architecturally unsound for the climate?

Ugh... after reading up on it... the reasons seem pretty horrible.

"Posters have appeared in many Swiss cities showing a figure of a woman shrouded from head to foot in a burka. Behind her is the Swiss flag, shaped like a map of the country, with black minarets shooting up out of it like missiles.

The cities of Basel, Lausanne and Fribourg banned the billboards, saying they painted a "racist, disrespectful and dangerous image" of Islam.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee called the posters discriminatory and said Switzerland would violate international law if it bans minarets."


Should be interesting to see the UNHRC jump in.

Nope, it was a public vote. About 2.7million people voted on whether to allow minarets, 57.5% voted for banning them. Horrible. Source.

As for being structurally unsound or unappealing for the environment, a minaret is literally just a tower with a dome on top. It is perfectly structurally sound. If it wasn't associated with mosques I bet these people would say they were very attractive too.

Yeah, i dunno.  I just wanted to hope the best of Switzerland.  I always thought they were supposed to be a reasonable country....

then i ran across this.

Seems like Mosques had been attacked in the leadup to it too.... scary sadening stuff.

democracy, you can't argue with it.

The people make the country not the other way round.