Former Muslims back Swiss vote on Minarets

The Swiss Republic’s referendum decision to ban Minarets is being applauded by Former Muslims United (FMU).

FMU, led by executive director Nonie Darwish, is a civil rights organization which aims to protect the rights of former Muslims who have since renounced their faith. It is based in the United States and works within its laws and Constitution.

The 150 Mosques in Switzerland serve the 400,000 practising Muslims in the country and are said to be symbolic of the “Islamization of Europe, America and other Western democracies”. Minarets are the towers through which the call to prayer is sent out to Muslims via loudspeakers five times a day.

Nonie Darwish, executive director and co-founder of Former Muslims United, claims that this “victory” brings not only a ban on the towers but the assurance of a stronger Swiss democracy; she, along with other supporters of the ban, believes the towers to be representative of the “growth of an ideology and a legal system – Sharia law” and says that those are incompatible with Switzerland’s style of governance.

An example of the incompatibility of Swiss democracy and Islamic Sharia law is the wearing of burkas in public by Muslim women, something that Darwish defines as a “graphic element” of the latter.

While there is a feeling amongst some Muslims that this is an act of oppression to their religious freedom Darwish disagrees. She states that “such Muslim groups will be more credible if they first denounced the oppression of religious minorities in Muslim countries who make it illegal to practice any religion other than Islam.”

She further disbelieves their concerns of their oppression because “the blood of non-Muslims is being shed in the name of Sharia.”

The question of whether or not more countries will follow Switzerland’s example has yet to be answered, though Darwish highlighted the fact that a poll taken in neighbouring Germany after the Swiss decision revealed that “a similar effort there might win a plurality of votes.”

However, there is a legal question over the Swiss vote as it would apparently be against the law to discriminate against a religious group in this way.

Religious Intelligence