The right to practice a religion is one thing, and a legal entitlement to it as in the European Convention on Human Rights of which Switzerland is a treaty signatory, however the public manifestation of religion is a far more complicated issue and there is no clear cut ‘right’ for a confessional group to be able to demand each and very manifestation of its creed that it wishes from a polity.

The ECHR for example has upheld the ‘right’ of the secular nations of Turkey and France to prevent the public expression or manifestation of one symbol or feature associated with Islam, the headscarf or hijab, in national government employ or other civil national institutions the schools, universities and civil and military services for example.

Arguably minarets are not a necessary requirement for the free and unfettered practice of the Muslim faith either in private or together with co-religionists.

Whilst I think such a measure is unnecessary, even undesirable i cannot see that it is clearly illegal according to the jurisprudence of the ECHR and definitely not that of Switzerland.

It is certainly not undemocratic.

Switzerland is a multi religious federal republic of 27 autonomous Cantons and has maintained a careful neutrality between its Catholic and Protestant Cantons, historically ensuring peace, through a studied public downplaying of ostentatious religiosity, Catholic churches never feel, well, that Catholic in Switzerland.

Despite its history Switzerland has never made a pretence of being a modern European multi-cultural state and is indeed rather closed to social, political and cultural pluralism.

Switzerland has never made any pretence either of its treatment of non-citizens being treated equally before the law, non-citizens are tolerated and subject to a greater degree of oversight and socially expressed disapproval if they are seen as diverging from Swiss ways than citizens are.

As Muslims represent 400,000 residents but only 11.7% of it’s citizens, the Swiss attitude is likely to be rather one of ’so what?’ we decide what buildings are allowed to look like in Switzerland and we don’t want minarets disrupting our Heidi sense of harmony.

How a Swiss supreme court would decide on this matter is far from clear and would depend on the extant to which this is seen as an infringement of religious freedom, though I doubt that the court would rule against its plebiscite democracy deciding democratically how they wish Switzerland to look physically buildings and all.

Neither is it clear (compare headscarfs) if the Swiss constitutional court were to find against a Muslim plaintiff that ECHR would find against Switzerland as within the overall requirement of preserving religious freedom, the margin of appreciation, i.e. to what degree Switzerland may meet those obligations while still remaining within Swiss acceptable political, moral and social norms.

And as for norms assertion that the Muslim oppression of women is irrelevant to a freedom of religion claim, again not quite.

As I keep trying to point out the religious foundation of human rights law rests on the equitable principle of ‘clean hands’, that is a claimant claiming that their human rights have been violated should not be heard if they on the other hand themselves deny other human rights.

In other words you cannot plead a right to deny a right.

In summary the outlawing of certain architectural embellishments traditionally , but no means exclusively, associated with Mosques is far less a problematic inhibition of religious freedom than, say, the banning of certain kinds of religious speech (e.g. inflammatory sermons) would be, and in a democracy perhaps no more preventable.

I could not agree more (no criticism of HP contributors, the problem is the commenters).

But we have not. We have squirmed and tied ourselves in knots trying to allow one sector of the population to censor our speech, and our media, interfere with the due process of the police, create no-go areas in our cities, broadcast their intolerance in the streets, threaten apostates, cartoonists, authors and publishers, refuse to comply with medical hygiene procedures, and create hostile confrontational situations in workplaces so they can then sue for constructive dismissal. The accumulation of these things has created a priviledged class on the one hand, and on the other, a large residual mass of second class citizens.

Having achieved that, you can’t expect people to stand up for secular democracy now.

I think that here in the UK, we would get a significant groundswell of support for any party or campaign to re-instate secular democracy, and all the freedoms, right across the spectrum. Regardless. That would make more sense than banning minarets, which are just an outward show.

But we should never have let that slip from our fingers in the first place.

Gimlet’s uncle is Martin Bell, a character who won the Tatton Seat supposedly as an independent. Actually, as the Campbell Diaries make clear he was never anything other than a Nu-Labour stooge. Gimlet was his Uncle Martin’s campaign manager and he never twigged to the game that was being played. That’s just the way that Gimlet is – at Oxford a mate of mine named Tony Goodman used Gimlet as a stooge to do plenty of donkey work, with the promise that he would be run for office in the Union Society. Needless to say, poor Gimlet ended up being dumped when he had served his purpose.

Eddie,

I am not so sure that a throw away comment about Yoani Sanchez, aka old scrawny, is worth a reply by itself, especially as the full comment has been censored. However, if it is then it is worth more than a one-liner that contains nothing more than an unsubstantiated allegation. Please don’t do that as it makes you look like A. N. Other Webmong.

One logically leads to another. Why have minarets whose sole rationale, the spewing out of malevolent sectarian agitprop umpteen times a day, is prohibited. Far better to ban the minaret before pressure groups and Islamist lobbying caucuses’ sussuration into the right ears reaches a critical mass.

It would be perfectly legitimate to curb unwarranted loud praying under existing noise legislation.

Your use of the word ‘pray’ in this context tells me that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

Minarets are used to broadcast various things:

1) the 5 time-a-day ‘call to prayer’

2) the 5 time-a-day ‘iqamah’ [a shortened call to prayer just before salat/namaz/prayer begins]

3) often the prayer itself led by the imam including prayers said aloud (Fajr, Maghrib and ‘Isha) and the takbir ‘bits’ for the quiet prayers (dhuhr, ‘Asr)

4) often a daybreak call to prayer, annoncing the rising of the sun/end of the night

5) extended Taraweeh prayers during Ramadhan after ‘Isha

6) sectarian hymnals chanted prior to both Salat-ul-Eids

7) the Friday ranting sermon, when politics and incitement to hatred truly intersect

8) the poly-takbeered Salat-ul-Eids

If broadcasing religious agitprop is prohibited, then there’s no need for minarets. Problem solved.

and

the majority of immigration outside of the EU coming from Muslim-majority countries

“Swiss voters: stop the Minarets!”

http://newsrealblog.com/2009/12/01/stop-the-minarets/

And those 3 complete falsehoods are, SOC?