GENEVA: The imam at Switzerland’s biggest mosque on Monday urged the Muslim world to respect a decision to ban minarets, saying any backlash would harm the Muslim community.
“The message is one of calm. It will not help to abandon trade or ties with Switzerland,” said Youssef Ibram, imam at the Geneva mosque which was vandalized several times in the run-up to the vote.
“The Muslim world must respect ... the Swiss decision. Otherwise, we would be the first victims,” he told AFP.
Switzerland on Sunday voted to ban minarets, backing an initiative brought by the far-right Swiss Peoples’ Party (SVP) — the country’s biggest political party.
The result flew in the face of opinion polls that had predicted a rejection and caught out government ministers who had opposed the ban alongside the bulk of Switzerland’s political, religious and economic establishment. The Swiss government sought to assure the country’s 400,000 Muslims, mainly from the Balkans and Turkey, that the outcome was “not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture.” But Ibram said the government was at fault for not having shot down the initiative from the start.
He said it could have stopped the initiative from going to a vote, claiming it violated constitutional provisions guaranteeing religious freedom. “Muslims and Islam have been condemned. Even if today we say it’s not the case, it is the case. It is the people, the citizens of the Muslim faith who have been targeted,” he said.
The same message was echoed by Farhad Afshar, who heads the Coordination of Islamic Organizations in Switzerland.
“The most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote. Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community,” he said. Muslim leaders believe that with the latest victory, the far-right in Switzerland will feel emboldened to further target the Muslim community. “I’m sure that the SVP, given this success, will use other initiatives like the burka, it will come up with other subjects to have other electoral successes, to hurt the Muslim community again,” said Ibram.
Swiss leaders on Monday rushed to limit the damage from the referendum, amid fears that it would harm trade and tourism.
“I do fear, without being able to put a figure to it, that the outcome won’t be without consequences for our exports and tourism,” Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told Le Temps newspaper.
In a statement, the main Swiss business and employer’s association, Economiesuisse, called on the federal government to “limit the potential damage” by striking up dialogue with Muslim nations.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said officials were drawing up campaign points for use by Swiss diplomats.
Visitors from the Gulf region generate an estimated $250 million in revenue for Geneva alone, about one tenth of the city’s annual tourism revenue, tourism officials estimated recently.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s Mufti Ali Gomaa denounced the Swiss vote as an “insult” to Muslims across the world, but called on Muslims not to be provoked by the move. “This proposal...is not considered just an attack on freedom of beliefs, but also an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside Switzerland,” Gomaa, the Egyptian government’s official interpreter of Islamic law, told the MENA news agency. He encouraged Switzerland’s 400,000-strong Muslim community to use “dialogue” and legal means to contest the ban, which he described as “provocative behavior.”
Gomaa also called on Muslims not to be affected “by this provocation,” adding that Islam “considers humanity a single family.”
The Vatican on Monday endorsed criticism by Swiss bishops that the vote banning mosque minarets was a blow to religious freedom. Antonio Maria Sveglio, president of the pontifical council on migration, told the ANSA news agency that “we are on the same page” as the Conference of Swiss Bishops.
