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IT ALL started as a minor planning row in the village of Wangen in the district of Olten, eastern Switzerland. When worshippers at the local mosque wanted to erect a six-metre minaret on its roof, neighbours objected, claiming it would spoil the view. But, on Sunday, the whole country will vote on the row in a referendum to ban minaret construction that mirrors disputes over the hijab in France and anti-Muslim protests in Britain, and will be a test of Switzerland’s commendably liberal attitude to the integration of its minorities.
The initiative, triggered by a petition of 114,900 signatures (100,000 are needed to call a referendum), has largely been driven by the country’s biggest political party, the hard-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP). It claims that the minaret is more a political than religious symbol, a “symbol for political Islamisation”, according to one of its MPs. And the party has fanned anti-Muslim sentiment with posters depicting a woman in a burka against the backdrop of a Swiss flag covered with missile-like black minarets, underscored by the word “Stop”. Authorities in Basle, Lausanne and Fribourg this week banned it from city billboards as “racist”.
