GENEVA (Agencies)
Arab League chief Amr Moussa on Tuesday denounced a vote in Switzerland that banned the construction of any further minarets as the top United Nations rights official said the ban was linked to a growing wave of "anti-foreigner scaremongering."
Moussa, who heads the 22-member organization, told reporters that the ban, approved by almost 58 percent of Swiss voters on Sunday, was a "violation of the rights of Muslims living in Switzerland."
" If allowed to gather momentum, discrimination and intolerance not only do considerable harm to individual members of the targeted group, they also divide and harm society in general "
UN rights chief He added that he hoped "the issue will be treated by resorting to the authorities and human rights courts."
Muslim leaders and rights groups have condemned the ban, which will be included in Switzerland's constitution. The alpine country's four existing minarets will not be affected.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said on Tuesday the ban endangered security.
"The reality of our societies, in Europe and in the world (is that) every blow to the co-existence of different cultures and religions also endangers our security," she said, according to a written transcript of her speech in Greece which was released by the ministry.
UN criticism
" I urge people everywhere to take this issue of discrimination seriously "
UNMeanwhile the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said in a statement that prohibiting an architectural structure linked to Islam or any religion was "clearly discriminatory."
Swiss voters adopted the ban in a referendum on Sunday, defying the government and parliament which had rejected the right-wing initiative as violating the Swiss constitution, freedom of religion and a cherished tradition of tolerance.
Pillay said the ban was "discriminatory, deeply divisive and a thoroughly unfortunate step for Switzerland to take, and risks putting the country on a collision course with its international human rights obligations."
"I urge people everywhere to take this issue of discrimination seriously," Pillay said.
"If allowed to gather momentum, discrimination and intolerance not only do considerable harm to individual members of the targeted group, they also divide and harm society in general."
A U.N. human rights body, composed of independent experts, said last month the ban would bring Switzerland into "non-compliance" with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it has ratified.
Pillay's spokesman, Rupert Colville, was asked at a news briefing whether this meant that Switzerland was violating the pact. "It's not quite the same as saying it's a violation, but it is a very short step short of saying that," he said.
Pillay's office might be prepared to submit an opinion if critics of the ban were to challenge it in a court, he said.
The Council of Europe said on Monday the ban raised concern over whether fundamental rights, protected by international treaties, should be the subject of popular votes.
Sadness
" This decision by the Swiss people caused great sadness in our country "
Turkish Foreign Ministry A group of politicians from the SVP, the country's biggest party, and the conservative Federal Democratic Union gathered enough signatures to force the referendum on the initiative which opposed the "Islamization of Switzerland."
Its campaign poster showed the Swiss flag covered in missile-like minarets and the portrait of a woman covered with a black chador and veil associated with strict Islam.
"I hesitate to condemn a democratic vote, but I have no hesitation at all in condemning the anti-foreigner scare-mongering that has characterized political campaigns in a number of countries, including Switzerland, which helps produce results like this," said Pillay, a former South African judge.
Switzerland, a country of 7.7 million, is home to more than 300,000 Muslims, mainly from Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey.
Turkey joined a chorus of international concern at the vote, calling it "an unfortunate development against fundamental humanitarian values and freedoms." "This decision by the Swiss people caused great sadness in our country," the Foreign Ministry said, added it expected Switzerland "to take steps to correct this situation."
Switzerland's biggest-selling daily newspaper Blick defended the vote, saying the minaret ban does not reject religious freedom and immigrants needed to make more of an effort to integrate in Swiss society.
"We should not be ashamed of ourselves!" Blick's front page headline said on Tuesday. "We need a clear answer to the question of whether Muslims accept our legal system without any ifs or buts," it said in an editorial.
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In a comment on this issue, the famous Muslim Sheikh Habib Ali Jafri said, we need to look at this crisis and other crises, with some foresight, and that each case positive and negative aspects, as a prelude to deal systematically in order to achieve the correct global values of Islam and the interests of Muslim presence there. Hence the need to understand a vote banning the construction of minarets in the framework of democratic rules, the Swiss The European liberal culture, noting that there is some kind of follow up and acceleration to incite the peoples of Europe against Islam and Muslims to provoke them to cross-reactions did not match their commitment to Islamic values and citizenship in the country in which they live in its territory, and thus portrayed as exotic and dangerous entity on the values of European culture and civilized.
ReplyDeleteIt is the positive aspects of the event need to understand the impact of the spread of Islam in those lands to reduce the discomfort of some extremist currents and even deny what they pay lip service and promoted by the values of pluralism and acceptance of others and respect for fundamental human rights, just as the event invitation to the consistency and attention to the universal values of Islam and there are declining the currents even right-wing values, which were claiming universality and commitment to it. Such of these behaviors is an opportunity for Muslims to direct their discourse to the world after a long decline.
Habib Ali also stressed the need to return to ourselves first and blamed the inability of Muslims to highlight the true nature of Islam in each of their surroundings, and that the force of treatment with the truth of God's love and the power of good to others is to confer on the effectiveness of physical force and effect.
Habib Ali Jafri finished his speech to address our Muslim brothers in Switzerland to abide by the reactions commensurate with the paper and ethics of Islam, and adhere to their religion and firmness of hand, and to confirm through the everyday interactions they are substrates willing and able to integrate into Swiss society on the other hand, with address the folk they are talking about the values of pluralism and respect for human dignity and acceptance of others in terms of a third.
The eminence we had stopped and held up by long time supporters of the ban the building of minarets (57%) and Gflana seeing the other side are a large proportion (43%) and earn more, especially with the announcement of the Swiss government regretted as soon as the result of the vote and it is concerned of the consequences of this result on the image Switzerland as a democracy and believes in exercise pluralism, but did not see anything wrong to seek the people of the Muslim community in Switzerland to the European Court of Human Rights
http://www.alhabibali.com/ar/news/article/57/