According to The Associated Press the referendum backed by nationalist parties was approved by 57.5 % of population.
Prior to the referendum, on television and in the news papers Swiss flag was shown superimposed with images of minarets as missiles and a woman covered in black from head to toe.
The supporters of ban claim that number of Muslims has sharply grown in Switzerland since 1980, but in reality they only constitute 4 percent of the 7.5 million Swiss. The majority of Muslim immigrants in Switzerland are from Bosnia and Turkey.
The Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf and other legal experts have raised the questions whether ban on the minarets is compatible with the Swiss constitution and international human right code.
The Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, whose country holds the rotating E.U. presidency, described the vote as “an expression of quite a bit of prejudice and maybe even fear.”
Asma Jahangir the United Nation’s special investigator on religious freedom considers “the ban a clear discrimination against member of Muslim community in Switzerland”.
Similar sentiments are expressed by Daniel Warner the Swiss American political scientist at the Graduate Institute in Geneva “Switzerland’s self image of tolerance and multiculturalism has taken a huge hit”
This may be beginning of a new crusade?
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