Switzerland is often portrayed as a neutral and tolerant place where people are allowed to go about their business. But today - if the exit polls are right - it has become the first country in Europe to formally vote in a referendum to discriminate against Muslims with a ban on the building of minarets - the towers in mosques from which the moezzins can be heard calling the faithful.
There are only four minarets in the whole of Switzerland - but it seems the Swiss find them threatening and want to slow the growth of Islam. The government opposed the move, and various people have warned of the potential inflammatory effect of this. We will be talking to Muslims here about how they feel about it - so far they are saying it is wrong, depressing and Islamophobic but not as provocative as the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Channel 4Sideways.
Well done them, the Swiss lovely Nazi gold storing chaps that they are, have decided to look after their own rather than the "enricher's" of Islam.
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4 people have spoken:
Have the Swiss actually voted, in a way that will be obeyed by the politicians, to refuse yet more Minarets ?
Roll on a referendum here. Oh, sorry, we don't do what the people want, do we?
If we all vote UKIP we'll get the chance to have referenda on how this country is run.
The will of the Swiss people expressed through referenda are constitutionally binding. The Swiss remind their Governments who is sovereign on a regular basis. It's been going on for 140 years.
Minarets are not to be built is Swiss Law.
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