BERLIN – Swiss voters on Sunday narrowly approved a proposal to ban face coverings, both niqabs and burqa worn by several Muslim women in the country, and ski masks and bandanas worn by protesters.
The measure will prohibit covering one’s face in public places, such as restaurants, sports stadiums, public transport or simply walking on the street. It provides for exceptions to religious places and for safety or health reasons, such as the face masks that people now wear to protect against COVID-19, as well as for traditional carnival celebrations. The authorities have two years to draw up detailed legislation.
Two cantons or Swiss states, Ticino and St. Gallen, they already have similar legislation that provides for fines for violations. National legislation will align Switzerland with countries such as Belgium and France that have already taken similar measures.
The Swiss government opposed the measure as excessive, arguing that full coverage is a “marginal phenomenon”. He argued that the ban could harm tourism – most Muslim women wearing such veils in Switzerland are visitors to Persian Gulf states with heels, which are often attracted to Swiss lakeside cities.
Experts estimate that at most a few dozen Muslim women wear full-face covers in the country of 8.5 million people.
Proponents of the proposal, who reached a vote five years after its launch, argued that full coverage symbolizes women’s repression and said the measure is needed to support a basic principle that should be shown in a free society such as Al Switzerland.
Finally, 51.2% of voters supported the plan. There were majorities against it in six of Switzerland’s 26 cantons – including those in the country’s three largest cities, Zurich, Geneva and Basel and the capital Bern. Public television SRF reported that voters in several popular tourist destinations, including Interlaken, Lucerne and Zermatt, rejected it.
Supporters included the nationalist Swiss People’s Party, which is the strongest in parliament. The committee that launched the proposal is led by a party MP, Walter Wobmann, and also initiated a ban on the construction of new minarets, which voters approved in 2009.
A coalition of left-wing parties that opposes the proposal put signs ahead of the referendum that read: “Absurd. Useless. Islamophobia ”.
Wobmann told SRF that the initiative addressed both “a symbol of a completely different system of values … extremely radical Islam” and security against “hooligans”. He said that “this has nothing to do with symbolic politics.”
Voters spoke on two other issues Sunday. They clearly rejected a voluntary “e-ID” proposed to improve the security of online transactions – an idea that affected privacy advocates because it was allegedly issued by private companies – and narrowly approved a free trade agreement with Indonesia.