Switzerland banned mosque minarets despite only four existing nationwide.

Evidence

The famously “neutral” country of Switzerland—long praised for its tolerance and forward-thinking nature—has roughly 150 mosques nationwide, with only four minarets among them across the whole country. There are about four hundred thousand Muslims in all of Switzerland—most of them from Kosovo and Turkey—among a total population of about 7.5 million people. Nonetheless, the Swiss government would have you think that Muslims are trying to build mosque minarets on every peak of the Swiss Alps! In 2009, a national referendum put forth by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) proposed legislation to ban mosque minarets across the country. It passed with 57.5 percent of the vote. It also put Switzerland in breach of international conventions on human rights and religious freedom. — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 554

At the time of the vote, there were only four minarets in all of Switzerland, and yet the majority of Swiss voters supported the ban. There is a global Islamophobia network that works cooperatively together. Known as the “counter-jihad” movement, it works across borders sharing strategies, theories, and rhetoric. Sociologist David Miller’s non-profit organization, Public Interest Investigations, posted a report on its Spinwatch website in 2019 on the global counterjihad movement and its sources of funding. The Spinwatch report states that “the US counterjihad movement has been critical to facilitating the flows of ideas, people and money into Europe via its transatlantic network.” The Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, who killed seventyseven people in a bombing and mass shooting in 2011, cited several prominent US Islamophobes in his manifesto. Co-founder of Stop Islamization of America with Geller, Robert Spencer, led the pack, receiving 162 mentions in the racist diatribe. Buoyed by the victory in Switzerland in 2009, Geller and Spencer set out to reproduce the phenomenon of generating hatred for the symbols of Islam in New York City. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 660

Categorization

• XREF: Symbolic (not practical) anti-Muslim legislation echoes the moral-panic dynamics in the machine cluster’s single-nation studies. — connects to: The Swiss minaret ban passed despite opposition from government and Christian organizations — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 639; The Swiss minaret ban rested on framing Islam as foreign to Western values — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 57; A Swiss ban on four minarets inspired US Islamophobic campaigns
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Global…, 554; Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 660

Broader Connections

• A Swiss ban on four minarets inspired US Islamophobic campaigns #expands (0.85)