Swiss Minaret Ban and other European Issues

[Túrin Turambar]

I get the feeling Swiss courts are going to be grappling with those issues in the near future.

If I lived in Switzerland, I think I'd be heading down to the hardware store right now for some PVC pipe, spraypaint and a nicely-shaped flower basket...

[yovargas]

It'd be cool if this inspired a bunch of copycats in protest.

[Inanna]

The Swiss People’s Party shows no sign of backing down and is organising a referendum to order the automatic expulsion of foreigners guilty of criminal offences such as murder, rape, robbery or drug trafficking.

It has already gathered 210,000 signatures, more than enough to force a referendum under Swiss law.

Are citizens also "foreigners"?

And "yayy" for Mr. Monrad.

[Túrin Turambar]

In other news relating to European elections:

As you all probably know by now, the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign was stolen from Auschwitz last week. It was since recovered, found hacked into three pieces. The motives behind the theft appear to be emerging:

Auschwitz sign 'to fund Swedish terror attacks'

By Marcus Oscarsson and Jenny Booth

THE Nazi gang that ordered the theft of the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign from Auschwitz planned to sell it to fund attacks against the Swedish PM and Parliament.

A spokesman for the Swedish security police confirmed that the authorities were taking seriously a threat by a militant Nazi group to disrupt national elections next year.

"We are aware of the information about the alleged attack plans," said Patrik Peter, the security police spokesman. “We have taken actions. We view this seriously.”

The wrought-iron sign, whose inscription 'Arbeit Macht Frei' translated as 'Work sets you free' – was viewed by hundreds of thousands of Jews as they entered the Nazi camp where they met their deaths during the Second World War.

It was stolen from the camp – now a museum – last Friday, provoking worldwide expressions of dismay and revulsion.

It was recovered on Monday, hacked into three pieces and wrapped in cloth.

Police suspect that it was initially hidden in woodland before being transferred to a builder’s yard where it was found.

Allegations concerning who ordered the theft, and why, surfaced today in Swedish newspaper reports after the former leader of a Swedish Nazi group claimed that it had been stolen to order for a collector in England, France or the United States.

"We had a person who was ready to pay millions for the sign," the unnamed source told Aftonbladet, Sweden's biggest-selling daily newspaper.

The Nazi source said that the money would pay for an attack on the home of Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister who has held the rotating presidency of the European Union for the last six months, and on the Swedish Foreign Ministry, the paper reported.

link

[MithLuin]

I can't say I'm upset that that sign got hacked into pieces....

But as for the rest of the story. Ugh!

[Hachimitsu]

Thanks for posting about the minaret thing LM. I remember reading about it in some article and I am extremely deeply disapointed. I would like to hear more about the EU elections.

About not really posting in Lasto, well due to the amount of American centric threads I just sort of felt no one would be interested in threads about other countries. Especially when starting a thread about something international I don't know a ton about and people asking background information. I totally gave up on the Symposium on B77 as it's just about US stuff now and basically I feel sort of the same way here. Just because it's American does not automatically mean everyone will be interested in it/care about it and want to post about it. Especially when I have limited time (with a ton of crap with the school funding drama) I don't have time (or really care) to worry about what is happening in the US.


Like the healthcare debate thing, I feel well... not nice things about the US considering much of the world had figured it out already. (To the point of feeling like saying grow up already). I apologize for coming across too strong but I just looked at two debate forums full of US stuff and crap about fox news (which I have never even seen since we don't get it my area and well, I don't think I am missing much). Sorry for the extreme osgilliation.

[Túrin Turambar]

There have been moves to ban the burqa in France, in Belgium, and now, in Quebec. In particular, a bill has been tabled requiring people to have exposed faces before they can get service at public institutions.

By tabling the controversial law, the government is responding to a debate that has been raging since 2006.

In 2007, the province launched the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on issues of reasonable accommodations following concerns over reports of members of religious and cultural communities making special requests at public institutions.

More recently, the debate was stirred up by an Egyptian woman who was expelled from provincially funded French language classes after she refused to remove her niqab — a style of veil that covers essentially the whole body, leaving only the eyes exposed.

Though similar debates over questions of identity have been ongoing for years in Europe, Quebec is the lone Canadian province to have addressed the issue.

The opposition Parti Québecois dismissed the bill, calling for clear limits to accommodation requests to be inscribed in the province's charter of rights.

The bill only legislates existing jurisprudence and confirms that the government will study requests for accommodation on a case-by-case basis, said PQ justice critic Véronique Hivon.

On Wednesday, the PQ used question period to attack the government on its decision to modify the school calendars permitting institutions to teach on weekends and certain holidays — a decision the opposition said was made to meet the demands of the Jewish community.

Culturally, Quebec is an interesting case, unique in North America. A great deal of the province’s public policy is devoted to preservation of its French character, to a degree that certainly wouldn’t be considered acceptable in any other Canadian province or U.S. State. The Quebecois get away with it in a large part because they’re a minority themselves. For example, their draconian language laws, designed to preserve the French language in the middle of a mostly English-speaking continent, also mean that Quebec demands immigrants adapt to speaking French far more strictly than the U.S. or the rest of Canada demands that they adapt to speaking English. Given that this law is proposed by the Government I imagine it will pass.

[Lalaith]

I guess I don't understand why there's a need for the women to remove their coverings. ?? (It's not that I like that practice, per se, but it is their religious right to do so.) I'm looking for the arguments these people are using to enact these laws.

[Frelga]

This is a strange counterpoint to the concurrent discussion about the laws that penalize women for exposing too much of their bodies.

[Maria]

Perhaps governments just ought to stay out of the business of telling people what to wear.

[Teremia]

I can see the rationale for wanting a woman's face visible on her official ID cards and driver's license, and I suppose that might extend to wanting her face visible when she drives (or her being willing to show her face if a police officer pulls her over).

I'm uncomfortable with clothing laws that seem to be motivated by conscious, semi-conscious, or even unconscious prejudice, though. In France it did seem contradictory that most religious markers (like veiled hair) were banned from schools, with an exception made (as I recall) for crosses worn around the neck. It really would look less anti-Muslim if they made the bans absolute. Or didn't have bans at all.

At the same time, burqas and the like make me upset in some really visceral, unreformed-70s-feminist ways. I guess I do believe it is all about oppression of women, at some deep level, even if the women who take the veil say it's by choice.

So I'm a tangle of contradictions on this one.

[Nin]

I understand it can be an issue: hwo to be sure that it is really the mother coming to pick up her child at school if you can't see her?

[Maria]

Implant an ID chip under her skin and scan her......

[Primula Baggins]

That's actually a very interesting solution, Maria, for people determined not to unveil. It would have to be under a piece of skin they didn't mind baring, though. Hand, maybe.

Maybe that sounds Orwellian, but it would be voluntary and it would let the women follow their beliefs.

[Maria]

Hey, I had one of those "Avid" chips put in my rat terrier. The technology is already available. Her fur doesn't interfere with the scan read and I bet clothing wouldn't either.

[Primula Baggins]

Our dog has one, too. No, it's not the clothing thing, it's the security. The person doing the scanning would need to know the chip they were scanning was really inside this person's body, not carried in her hand or sewn into a seam or something.

[Maria]

Ohhhhhhhhh. OK. Yeah, that makes sense.


I wonder how long before something like that is implemented for everyone on the planet, with sensors everywhere so everyone can be tracked. It'd be marketed as a convenient option at first, but in a generation it'll be mandatory like social security numbers.

[Nin]

I'm sorry but the idea of implanting a chip into a person scares me much more than the idea of forbidding the burqa or niqab in public places. You can't have a machine to read the chips in every post office, every school... or how about someone hiding under a burqa to burgle, to smuggle or worse to transpor drugs or bombs?

I know this is not happening... and I also know it may seem paranoid. But I fell about burqa or niqab as Teremia, very contradictory.

At the same time, burqas and the like make me upset in some really visceral, unreformed-70s-feminist ways. I guess I do believe it is all about oppression of women, at some deep level, even if the women who take the veil say it's by choice.

There is also a difference for me between a veil and a burqa which lets you only see the eyes and severly handicapes women for walking, driving etc as they don't see enough to be safe.

As for religious symbols in France: forbidden are immediately visible and recognisable symbols. So you can wear a cross or a David's star or a Hand of Fatima around your neck, but not too big nor too visible. This is not only for crosses. Kippas are forbidden too, by the way. (all this in public school only!). In France for grils who insist on covering their hair, caps are admitted without problems!
In Switzerland, headscarf is allowed. So far, we never had the question of a student in complete body veil like a burqa or niqab. It is discussed to forbide those in public places. In summer, when they are many Arabs in Geneva, you see a lot of veiled women also with face masks. I remember when Benjamin saw one for the first time, he pulled on my sleeve and told me: "Look mum, I think the woman has a problem..." I also remember a little girl in a store one day running over to her mother, screaming "Mummy, mummy, a ghost..."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Um, this is getting pretty far away from the Swiss Minaret Ban, or from clothing prohibitions that target Muslim communities. Do we need a thread split?

[Túrin Turambar]

Um, this is getting pretty far away from the Swiss Minaret Ban, or from clothing prohibitions that target Muslim communities. Do we need a thread split?

It seems there's not much more to discuss about the minaret ban, so I'd be happy to leave this here for other news relating to the banning of religious (particularlt Muslim) symbols. After all, the basic questions and issues are often similiar.