{"id":16076,"date":"2018-09-23T19:23:31","date_gmt":"2018-09-23T19:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16076"},"modified":"2018-09-23T19:23:31","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T19:23:31","slug":"second-swiss-region-votes-to-ban-burqa-in-public-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16076","title":{"rendered":"Second Swiss region votes to ban ‘burqa’ in public places"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Swiss\u00a0region of St Gallen has voted in favour of a “burqa ban”, prohibiting all face-covering garments in public spaces, a decision that a local Islamic organisation has termed “Islamophobic”.<\/p>\n

In a referendum on Sunday in the northeastern canton of St Gallen, nearly 67 percent of voters approved the ban, the second region in Switzerland<\/a> to do so after Ticino two years ago.<\/p>\n

Three other Swiss cantons – Zurich, Solothurn and Glarus – have rejected introducing such bans in recent years.<\/p>\n

The referendum was held<\/a>\u00a0after local parties, Green Party and Young Socialists, demanded a vote following the passage of a law in St Gallen parliament last year.<\/p>\n

That law stated that “any person who renders themselves unrecognisable by covering their face in a public space, and thus endangers public security or social and religious peace will be fined”.<\/p>\n

Drafted following an uproar in the canton over a girl who wore a face veil to school, the law, critics said, does not define when a woman wearing veil constitutes a danger.<\/p>\n

They also warn of arbitrary sanctions.<\/p>\n

The Islamic Central Council of Switzerland slammed the ban as “Islamophobic”.<\/p>\n

Other opponents argued the ban was “useless” since very few women wear “burqas” or other face-covering veils in St Gallen.<\/p>\n

National referendum<\/h2>\n

Last year, the Swiss government opposed a nationwide “burqa ban”, saying it should be up to the regions to determine if such measures were appropriate.<\/p>\n

A national referendum on the issue is expected next year after the right-wing Swiss People’s Party gathered 100,000 signatures required to put any subject to vote under Switzerland’s famous direct democratic system.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2009, Switzerland banned the construction of minarets at mosques in a similar referendum, attracting worldwide attention.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, a survey by two Swiss papers found that an emphatic 76 percent of respondents favoured a ban on face veils, while 20 percent opposed it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several other European countries including\u00a0Belgium<\/a>, Bulgaria<\/a>, Denmark<\/a>, France<\/a> and the Netherlands<\/a> have introduced full or partial bans on face veils and head coverings in recent years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Swiss\u00a0region of St Gallen has voted in favour of a “burqa ban”, prohibiting all face-covering garments in public spaces, a decision that a local Islamic organisation has termed “Islamophobic”. In a referendum on Sunday in the northeastern canton of St Gallen, nearly 67 percent of voters approved the ban, the second region in Switzerland…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":16077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}