Right-Wing Radicals Protest against Minarets

9 October 2010 Around 150 anti-minaret protests have gathered in Langenthal to denounce the recent decision to allow the construction of a minaret for the local Islamic center. Members of the far-right Swiss Nationalist Party (PNOS) demanded that the November 2009 ban on minarets be respected, however local officials have said that the original decision…

Share Button
Read More

Green Light for a Minaret in Langenthal

21 September 2010 The canton of Bern has confirmed the construction permit for a minaret in Langenthal. Despite the minaret ban that exists in Switzerland since the referendum of 29 November 2009, local officials stated that the project had been approved before the referendum took place, and thus the prior legal situation should take precedence….

Share Button
Read More

Follow-up survey on Switzerland’s minaret ban

According to a “Vox” follow-up survey conducted in Switzerland following the referendum banning minarets, proponents of the ban wanted to make a symbolic gesture against the spread of Islam in Switzerland, however were not rejecting Muslims in Switzerland in general. The survey demonstrated a clear division between right and left-wing voters, 80 percent of whom…

Share Button
Read More

Not against Muslims, but against Islam

According to a “Vox” follow-up survey conducted in Switzerland following the referendum banning minarets, proponents of the ban wanted to make a symbolic gesture against the spread of Islam in Switzerland, however were not rejecting Muslims in Switzerland in general. The survey demonstrated a clear division between right and left-wing voters, 80 percent of whom…

Share Button
Read More

Silencing Bosnia’s minarets

In the eastern Bosnian town of Bjeljina, 1,200 Serb residents signed the petition which calls for the reduction of the volume of the ezan (call to prayer) as it apparently creates a disruptive “noise” for the local Serb population. Harun Karcic, a graduate researcher at the Roberto Ruffili Faculty of Political Science thinks that this…

Share Button
Read More