Switzerland: Muslim women can be religious leaders

Switzerland: Muslim women can be religious leaders



Via the Local:

A new Swiss study has found that some Muslim women have more say in their communities than many Christian or Jewish women.

Researchers from the National Science Foundation wanted to know which women had the option of taking on leadership roles within their religious communities.

The results obtained by Sunday newspaper SonntagsBlick, found that while some Islamic groups were conservative, many others were surprisingly liberal.

“Particularly in the Alevi and Sufi groups, women have more opportunities to advance to positions of spiritual leadership," Jörg Stolz, professor of sociology and religion at the University of Lausanne, told SonntagsBlick. 

(source)

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Switzerland: Priest who runs anti-Islam website faces probe

Switzerland: Priest who runs anti-Islam website faces probe

Via the Local:

A Reformist priest from a tiny Bernese village is under investigation by church leaders after it emerged that she helped run a fanatical anti-Islamic website.

The Council of Reformist Churches for Bern, Solothurn and Jura has criticised the priest, and declared her activities on website ‘Politically Incorrect’ to be “incompatible” with her position as a priest due to the “Islam-baiting” that takes place on it, newspaper Tages Anzeiger reported.

(source)

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Switzerland: Anti-Islam group must be protected

Switzerland: Anti-Islam group must be protected


Via the Local:

The Federal Court says an anti-Islam group has the right to give out leaflets from an information booth if it wants – and the local authorities must protect them.

Fribourg Council banned the group – The Movement Against the Islamization of Switzerland – from setting up an information booth Place Georges-Python during the anti-minaret campaign in 2009.

It said it refused to give permission because of a fear that violence and unrest would break out as a result, provoking a legal challenge.

(source)

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Switzerland: Muslim cemeteries seen as 'long-term investments'

Switzerland: Muslim cemeteries seen as 'long-term investments'

Via WRS:

TUNGER: “At one point, earlier or later, you have to tackle this question, because the Muslims are there.  They have the constitutional right for a decent burial.  What experience shows is that more than a dozen municipalities in Switzerland have found a solution by a process in which local authorities and local Muslims sit at a table and  discuss what possibilities do we have, what solutions do we have.  Almost everywhere a solution has been found.”

Cornel Suter at Lucerne’s cemetery says working with the local Muslim association has been helpful for a number of reasons—pointing out religious requirements, helping with language, or even mediating cultural differences.  He is thankful for that.

Researcher Andreas Tunger sees this example as paramount:

TUNGER: “What we have seen until now is very much goodwill on this very grassroots level, which the populist tendencies cannot so easily exploit for national campaigns.”

(source)

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Switzerland: Language programme aims to boost integration

Switzerland: Language programme aims to boost integration

Via SwissInfo:

The Federal Migration Office has launched a language training system specifically defined around the integration needs of migrants. The course will be gradually introduced in collaboration with the cantons from the summer.

Called “FIDE – learn, teach and assess French, Italian and German in Switzerland”, the training system will become the nationwide norm for immigrant language training.

Its focus will be on giving immigrants the language competence needed to undertake such ordinary tasks such as consulting a doctor or attending parent-teacher meetings.

 (source)

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Switzerland: Swiss residents join jihad groups

Switzerland: Swiss residents join jihad groups

Via Swiss Info:

Several Swiss residents last year travelled abroad to join jihadist terrorist groups, the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) said on Tuesday, noting that an increase in jihad-motivated travel had been observed generally across Europe.

Releasing its annual report on Switzerland’s security situation, FIS said it was aware of several former Swiss residents who are currently in “a jihad area like Somalia or Afghanistan/Pakistan in order to take part in hostilities”.

However, the report said that while an increase in jihad-motivated travel movements had been observed across Europe – including in Switzerland – last year, the number of cases remained small, making it difficult to determine if there had been an increase in travel specifically from Switzerland. 

(source)

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Geneva: 'Project Maghreb' helps deport North African repeat offenders

Geneva: 'Project Maghreb' helps deport North African repeat offenders

Via TdG:

The police in Geneva estimates that 300-400 illegal North Africans are responsible for more than 6000 crimes over the past four years. In theory, once they serve their sentence, they can be deported back, but in practice Geneva is dependent on readmission agreements signed with other countries. The offenders usually hide their true identity which makes for a long process of identifying them, and then deporting them (either willingly or not). Many offenders claim to come from Algeria, which does not accept forced deportations.

In August the canton's Ministry of Security launched a pilot project to help repeat offenders return to their country voluntarily to pursue vocational training.

A dozen people already benefited from Project Maghreb, and about 50 other detainees, accepted the proposal. Candidates for aid have to meet certain criteria. For example, the candidate must be a repeat offender, and has to identify himself. A spokesperson for the ministry emphasized these are only people who committed minor crimes. They must also follow a credible program, with some taking up mechanic or taxi driver training.

Detainees cost 400-450 francs a day (12,000 a month), while the aid costs 4000 francs. The detainee gets 1000 francs from the Red Cross on his departure. An additional 3000 are transferred by an NGO for the reintegration project. Minister Isabel Rochat says that the project is not funded by tax-payers, but rather by funds seized during anti-drug trafficking operations.

This project enables the detainees to return home honorably and with a free training program. It also ensures they identify themselves, which makes it harder for them to return to Switzerland. It also serves as a stop-gap measure until the readmission agreements are finalized. Other cantons are considering launching similar projects.

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Switzerland: Government concerned with potential backlash in Muslim markets

Switzerland: Government concerned with potential backlash in Muslim markets

Via Sunday's Zaman:

Switzerland’s economy minister said on Wednesday that the Swiss government is concerned with a possible boycott of Swiss products overseas because xenophobic tendencies have found more ground in the wealthy European country.

Answering Today’s Zaman’s question in a written interview before boarding a plane to Ankara for an official visit on Thursday, Johann Schneider-Ammann,

the Swiss head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, said: “This is a big concern for my government. The key to solving this issue is dialogue; dialogue with Muslim communities in Switzerland and, on the international level, dialogue with Muslim countries.”

(source)

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Switzerland: Federal Court rules segregated swimming not a religious freedom right

Switzerland: Federal Court rules segregated swimming not a religious freedom right

Via the Local:

(...)

The parents argued that, in accordance with the teachings of the Koran, they wanted to instil a sense of shame in their children before they reached puberty. Mixed swimming lessons in primary school, the family claimed, would be incompatible with such an aim.

Following the family’s appeal of the original Administrative Court verdict, the Federal Court decided to uphold the fine. The court stated that the obligation to participate in mixed swimming classes did not represent a significant assault on the family’s religious freedom.

(source)

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Switzerland: Anti-racism week

Switzerland: Anti-racism week



Via swissinfo:

Swiss cantons and cities have joined forces to stamp out racism, which some observers say is on the rise. But their week-long campaign only targets part of the country.

Seven French- and Italian-speaking cantons this week launched the first joint anti-racism action on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, under the slogan “Diversity – a Swiss value?”

(source)

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Switzerland: Muslims advise fellow believers how to integrate

Switzerland: Muslims advise fellow believers how to integrate

Via swissinfo:

A group of Swiss Muslims has published recommendations for integration in response to a nationwide vote which banned the construction of minarets in Switzerland.

(...)

The Grouping of Swiss Muslims said its recommendations were not only for the attention of federal, cantonal and communal authorities, political parties, the media and business, but “in a large part, for Muslims”.

“Muslims must make more of an effort, but society also needs to open their arms,” one of the group members, Khaldoun Dia-Eddine, told reporters. The group was set up a day after the vote as an informal think tank, but does not claim to be representative of all Muslims in Switzerland.

(source)

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Switzerland: Immigrant group pleas for legal status

Switzerland: Immigrant group pleas for legal status



Via SwissInfo:

A support group for illegal immigrants has called on the authorities to grant legal status to at least 173 people as part of a collective amnesty.

A spokesman said a regularisation of status similar to that in neighbouring countries could end a political stalemate.

He said the situation for rejected asylum seekers and other foreigners without permits had worsened over the past four years.

(source)

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Switzerland: Canton to record nationality of offenders

Switzerland: Canton to record nationality of offenders

Via the Local:

Voters in Solothurn, north-western Switzerland, voted on Sunday for an amendment to the law requiring police and judicial officers to record the nationalities of offenders and suspects.

(source)

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Switzerland: Build villages for asylum seekers: Swiss party

Switzerland: Build villages for asylum seekers: Swiss party

Via the Local:

The Christian Democratic Party has tabled a motion to introduce specially built villages for asylum-seekers.

The idea is to build three “villages” in Canton Aargau in eastern Switzerland in order to house some 500 asylum-seekers.

(...)

But the far-right Swiss People’s Party thinks that such a system would create the wrong incentives for would-be asylum seekers, as it could make asylum in Switzerland even more attractive.

Others consider the plans for the villages to be similar to a kind of apartheid.

(source)

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Switzerland: Upper house buries anti-burqa motion

Switzerland: Upper house buries anti-burqa motion

Via Le Matin:

The Swiss upper house buried a motion Monday to ban the burqa. Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga argued the problem was insignificant in terms of numbers, and that no more than 100-150 women wore the burqa nationwide, most of them tourists. The cantons are still free to enact their own laws on the matter.

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Switzerland: New union of Albanian imams to fight for moderate Islam

Switzerland: New union of Albanian imams to fight for moderate Islam

(photo)

Via Romandie:

Albanians in Switzerland established the Union of Albanian Imams of Switzerland (UAIS), intended to fight extremism and advocate for moderate Islam. Albanians make up close to half of the Muslims in Switzerland.

President Rehan Neziri says they didn't create the union in opposition to the Central Islamic Council (CCIS), adding that CCIS president Nicolas Blancho doesn't represent moderate Muslims in Switzerland.

Unlike Blancho, Neziri objects to separate Muslim schools, though he adds that in cantons where the law provides for religious instruction in schools, they support religion classes for Muslims. "More generally, we totally agree with the Swiss system of separating Church and State".

Asked about the headscarf, Neziri said that in Switzerland, as in Kosovo, most Albanian Muslims don't wear it.

The new union represents 30 imams from across the country. Neziri says the union, which is politically neutral, is ready to discuss the Islam debate with the authorities. He says they want to establish a relationship of trust and to give inter-religious dialog a central place. Neziri added that they will give a voice to the majority of Muslims in Switzerland, who practice a moderate Islam.

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Switzerland: Forced marriage clampdown gets traction

Switzerland: Forced marriage clampdown gets traction

Via WRS:

The National Council has voted by 128 votes to 51 in favour of the the Federal Council’s tougher measures to combat forced marriages and marriages under age 18.

The measures would apply equally whether the marriage ceremony takes place within Swiss borders or in another country, and whether the marriage is a heterosexual or homosexual union.

(source)

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Switzerland: CoE urges new law amid "rising racism"

Switzerland: CoE urges new law amid "rising racism"

Via swissinfo:

The Council of Europe’s human rights chief has called for an overhaul of Swiss anti-discrimination law and policy.

Intolerance and racism are “dangerously on the rise”, the commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, said after a four-day review of Swiss policies and practices.

The review was part of the Council of Europe’s ongoing assessments of the human rights situation in member states. The last such Swiss review was in 2004 and this time around it paid particular attention to how Switzerland was fighting racism and xenophobia.

(source)

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Switzerland: Sharp increase in crime due to Tunisian refugees

Switzerland: Sharp increase in crime due to Tunisian refugees

Via 20min (French):

Olivier Guéniat, head of the Jura cantonal police, told newspaper Le Matin of the link between the massive increase in Tunisian asylum seekers in 2011 (up by 619% compared with 2010) and the sharp increase in crimes. The number of car burglaries doubled in May and June 2011, compared with the average until then, then increased to 6 times that amount from July to January 2012. Meanwhile, the number of Tunisians who arrived after the Arab Spring and were identified by DNA tests for these offenses, increased by 200% from November 2011 to January 2012.

Guéniat, who is considered close to the Socialists, said the problem was specific and economical, though at the same time unacceptable. The refugees have a hopeless future at home, and their daily allowance do not even allow them three cups of coffee. He refused to stigmatize a community of immigrants.

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Switzerland: Party slams 'exploding' number of asylum seekers

Switzerland: Party slams 'exploding' number of asylum seekers

Via AFP:

The far-right Swiss People's Party, the country's largest, on Monday accused the government of inaction and abuses in dealing with a surge of asylum seekers.

"The number of asylum applications is exploding, crime increases, the costs of asylum progressing from year to year," the SVP said in a statement, lamenting that processing takes up to four years.

"The Swiss asylum policy is now marked by abuses, absurdities and by inaction and confusion," the party said.

(source)

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