Mahmud Mosque in Switzerland built before recent ban on minarets in Switzerland
By Simon Bradley
Source: Swissinfo.ch
United Nations member states have urged Switzerland to step up its fight against racism, discrimination and human trafficking, create a proper national rights centre and improve equal rights at work as well as religious freedoms.
On Monday Switzerland defended its national human rights record for the second time before the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council in a peer review process known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR); its last appearance was in 2008.
Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter, head of the Swiss delegation, described the three-and-a-half-hour review consisting of oral and written recommendations and questions from 80 states as “intense”.
But it was also an “opportunity” for Switzerland to improve its human rights standards back home and something “the government took very seriously”, he said.
“The Swiss government believes the level of human rights protection in Switzerland to be good. But no country, even the ones where human rights are the most respected, can or should be complacent,” he added.
During the review most countries welcomed overall human rights advances in Switzerland since 2008.
But many said they were concerned by the lack of progress in a number of areas, in particular the fight against racism, discrimination and xenophobia.
India joined a chorus of states recommending the introduction of comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that could be applied nationwide.
The United States, Norway and a handful of Arab states recalled the 2009 popular initiative vote banning the construction of new minarets in Switzerland, which they saw as a restriction of religious freedoms.
While Turkey called for the ban to be overturned, the Norwegian ambassador urged Switzerland to “put in place institutional guarantees to ensure that its human rights commitments are protected against popular initiatives that may violate these commitments”.
States welcomed Switzerland’s ratification of a number of international human rights treaties since 2008, such as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.
But it said Switzerland could go further by ratifying others such as the first Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Despite the new treaties, the issues of gender equality, women’s rights and domestic violence against foreign women and disproportionate use of force by police officers were raised by several states.
Burkhalter said he was hopeful of further ratifications of UN conventions on disabled people’s rights and on forced disappearances but he said talks over the civil and political rights covenant were blocked.
Various countries also urged Switzerland to transform the newly created Swiss Centre of Expertise in Human Rights (SCHR) into a proper independent national agency which complied with the Paris principles governing the status and functioning of national human rights bodies. The SCHR is currently a five-year pilot project; Burkhalter said a decision on its future will be taken in 2014.
The US said it was concerned by restrictions on religious traditions, such as the Swiss ban on new minarets like this one at the Grand Mosque in Geneva (Keystone)
Categories: Europe, Switzerland
There are only two mosques with minarets in Switzerland, Mahmud Mosque is in Zurich and there is one in Geneva.
Proposal given by Sidra Norweigian embassador is very important. In France there exists a constitutional court which is authorised to review the decision of parliament also
I am of strong view that sooner or later the intelligent Swiss people will realize that the Ban on Construction of new Minarets was quite unnecessary and they were mislead and misinformed in a way by the politicians. This law has brought bad name to Switzerland and has damaged its brilliant record of human rights since decades. The proposal like that of Norway will make its way one day to bring back Switzerland into the fold of leaders caring for religious freedom.
A civilisation is measured not by the rights it grants its majority but the privileges it allows its minorities.
Muslim community not only needs Mosques but also state funded Muslim schools for their bilingual children.
Multiculturalism involves a level of complexity which cannot be understood from the prospective of any single discipline. Instead, historical, cultural, linguistic, political, economic, educational, sociological and psychological factors and processes all play critical role.
Multiculturalism is not about integration but about cultural plurality. It is not about separation but about respect and the deepening awareness of Unity in Diversity. Each culture will maintain its own intrinsic value and at the same time would be expected to contribute to the benefit of the whole society. Multiculturalism can accommodate diversity of all kinds – cultural, philosophical and religious – so that we can create a world without conflict and strife. Britain can assume the role of accommodation and concern for all peoples, for our planet and indeed for our survival. We live in a rapidly changing world.
Muslim families are as entitled as any other religious group to schools that nurture their children’s faith. Muslim pupils should be educated in Muslim schools because the current system is marginalising them. Teaching Muslim children in a Muslim school would remove the “problem of them being exposed” to values that conflict with Islamic faith. Muslim pupils are disadvantaged and marginalised in the city’s state schools because the cultural heritage of the curriculum is “European and Christian”.
Muslim schools provide an education in accordance with the Muslim beliefs and values, such as providing single-sex schooling after puberty. They are thus a response to the danger of absorption into the dominant culture. Bilingual Muslim children need state funded Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models during their developmental period. There is no place for a non-Muslim child or a teacher in a Muslim school. There are hundreds of state and church schools where Muslim children are in majority. In my opinion, all such schools may be opted out as Muslim Academies.
Iftikhar Ahmad
London School of Islamics Trust
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk