Switzerland: Moving towards a ban on full-face veils in public?

Giorgio Ghiringhelli of the Il guastafeste party.

Swiss-German daily Sonntagszeitung dated August 11, 2013 announced that the national leadership of the Swiss Christian Democrat party (PDC) would submit proposed legislation to all cantons concerning school dress codes. The Christian Democrat initiative follows a federal court decision of July 11, revoking a ban on headscarves established by the Thurgau municipality of Bürglen.

Bürglen had forbidden the wearing of headscarves for two Macedonian students, who had been wearing them to secondary school since the spring of 2011. The ban was founded on a school regulation that forbade certain articles of dress, such as miniskirts, baseball caps and sunglasses. The parents’ initial appeal to the administrative court saw the ban revoked, and the municipality appealed to the federal court, which stated that a ban on veils for schoolchildren was “contrary to religious liberty,” according to the court’s press release.

Christophe Darbellay, leader of the Christian Democrat party and member of the Swiss National Council, told Sonntagszeitung that wearing the veil made integration more difficult for students, and that it is easier for young Moslem women who do not wear the veil to find work placements.

On September 22, 2013, Ticino was the first Swiss canton to hold a popular vote on banning the burka and the niqab in public places, and the ban was supported by 65.3% of voters. The self-declared anti-burka initiative requested that a ban on appearing in public with the face masked be added to the Constitution.

“No one may mask or conceal his face in public or in places open to the public,” and “no one may force a third party to wear a veil because of their gender,” should be added to the constitution of the canton of Ticino, according to Giorgio Ghiringhelli of the Il guastafeste [Killjoy] party, the group that began the anti-burka initiative in March 2011 with 11,726 signatories. The wording suggested is that preferred by voters in the counter-proposal made by the government of Ticino. It remains for the federal government to approve the change in Ticino’s constitution.

The state council of Ticino had presented a counter-proposal, approved by its parliament, which agreed in principle but proposed to establish the ban as a law for public order but not as a change to the constitution.

According to Giorgio Ghiringhelli, the “preventative nature” of the ban would allow “the problem to be dealt with at its root and would halt the otherwise inevitable spread of the niqab and the burka.” During the parliamentary debates held in April, some representatives put forward the cases of veiled women who would no longer be able to appear in public. Giorgio Ghiringhelli insisted that the wording be introduced into the constitution so that it could not be modified without holding a popular vote. “This is not a groundless concern,” he stated, “the PS, for instance, has already announced to the parliament that it would propose an amendment to the law that would slacken the restriction…”

The Swiss branch of Amnesty International declared itself to be “appalled” by the acceptance of the anti-burka initiative and said the text was “contrary to constitutional law and to freedom of expression, a disturbing sign of intolerance.” “Fear and artificially turning something that is not a problem into one have overcome reason and respect, to the detriment of the fundamental rights of the population at large,” declared Manon Schick, general director of the Swiss branch of Amnesty International.

Bishop Pier Giacomo Grampa of Lugano, president of the Islam workgroup of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference, said on September 27, “This popular initiative (…) is another example of the wrong means to what is nonetheless a positive end, that of promoting and encouraging the integration of people from different countries, cultures and religions into Switzerland, including the Moslem religion. I believe that we should not go down the route of constitutional bans, but rather down that of integration, welcome, dialogue, mutual respect, and sharing of the values that define our civilizations and our democracies,  values that deserve to be protected and sustained. In my opinion it was the same as during the initiative to forbid minarets: fear was allowed to have the last word, and a minor problem was overestimated and given unmerited status.”

The default position of European bishops is easily identified here; they are generally timid when it comes to defending the Christian roots of Europe with practical means rather than flights of rhetoric. Rather than support populations who do what they can to contain the rise of Islam and its impositions of code and customs, their waffling seems to uphold the values of modern democracy to the detriment of witness to the Faith.

“Ticino’s project is essentially a facsimile of the French law,” passed on October 11, 2010, explained Guido Corti, legal advisor to the State Council. He emphasized that the French law forbidding concealment of the face in public is yet to be examined by the Grand Chamber of the European Human Rights Commission. Indeed, the court of the European Human Rights Commission responsible for a case of wearing a full veil in public in France passed the case, originally scheduled for May 30, 2013, off to the Grand Chamber which will hear it on November 27.

(Sources: kipa-apic.ch – Le courier – ATS – Swissinfo – Il Guastafeste – CES – CEDH – DICI no. 284, 08/11/13)

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