It was “disproportionate” to make a constitutional ban for the few women in Switzerland who are fully veiled, the council said, adding that religious motives for facial coverings are not comparable to facial coverings to escape criminal prosecution. It argued that the ban would create “a difficult dilemma” for the women affected.
“They would be exposed to a double injunction: on the one hand the religious requirement to cover their heads and, on the other hand, the state obligation to uncover their heads,” said the statement.
“The initiative claims to want to strengthen public safety. However, it is in reality directed against a tiny minority of the population. The initiative does not solve any problem, neither for the women concerned, nor in response to the challenges posed by radical religious ideologies in our society,” the statement added.
Andreas Tunger-Zanetti, director of the Center for the Study of Religions at the University of Lucerne, discussed the question in a Feb. 19 interview with the Catholic media center Cath-Info, a service of the Conference of Swiss Bishops.
“Many women who wear a nikab especially want to keep religious commandments. This is often based on a fundamentalist interpretation,” Tunger-Zantetti said. “In some cases, there may be a political agenda behind it. But the link with an organized Salafist Islam, political or pietist, is rather weak.”
He voiced concern about the decline in knowledge of religious facts and concepts and in the ability to interpret religious practice. Many people do not know the number of daily prayers Muslims are required to say, and they see even this practice as “a sign of radicalization.”
He saw the measure as “a defensive reflex due to uncertainty.”
Other European countries have passed rules that conflict with religious practices.
In Belgium, both Muslim halal and Jewish kosher slaughter practices have been banned on animal welfare grounds. In December 2020 a European Union court said the Belgian law is justified by the need to promote animal welfare even if it does not accommodate religious freedom.
Belgian’s Jewish umbrella group said they would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
European Union rules and regulations in many European countries require that animals be made insensible to pain before slaughter. Both Muslim and Jewish rules regarding animal slaughter preclude stunning because they require that the animals be in perfect health. Most European countries and the EU have religious exemptions to the requirement to stun animals. The Belgian rules do not.
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