Swiss leader calls for Jewish cemetery ban

[onehandle]

Source: JTA

BERLIN (JTA) -- A mainstream Swiss political leader is calling for a ban on separate Muslim and Jewish cemeteries.

Christophe Darbellay, president of the Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland, made the statement in a television interview Tuesday, two days after an initiative to ban minarets was passed by Swiss voters.

The anti-minaret initiative came from the opposing party, the ultra-conservative Swiss People's Party and other right-wing political organizations. Critics say Darbellay is starting a
"crusade," to attract voters by proposing similarly xenophobic measures.

According to the Swiss online daily Tagesanzeiger, Darbellay also wants to ban the wearing of burkas, head-to-toe veils worn by some fundamentalist Muslim women.

Read more: http://jta.org/news/article/2009/12/03/1009507/swiss-leader-calls-for-jewish-cemetery-ban

[apnu]

1. The fucking Swiss. Now I really dislike them. (nt)

[damntexdem]

14. Three cheers for the Union.

Strike up that band!

[WriteDown]

2. A little different when you read that he is speaking...

about SEPARATE cemeteries. Not sure I'd mind who I'm buried next to

[No Elephants]

4. That seems irrelevant to this story unless you are likely to be buried in Switzerland and are either

Jewish or Muslim.

[David__77]

8. Is he also calling for a ban on Christian cemetaries?

If not, then I don't see how this is a little different.

[Violet_Crumble]

12. It's not different. It's the same focusing on minorities as before...

Notice how they don't say anything about Christian cemetaries. And what about war cemetaries? Why stop at religious minorities the way many of these Swiss politicians do?

[Bette Noir]

3. This is getting crazy.

[surrealAmerican]

5. Why not just ban all cemeteries then?

There is no secular reason to bury dead people.

[Divine Discontent]

6. Flame On! that's what they should do. why use the land for that? jus saying.

[24601]

16. Soylent Green here we come! n/t

[surrealAmerican]

17. I'm thinking there may be other choices ...

... than just "bury them or eat them."

[24601]

18. Tastes like Chicken? Of course there are alternatives ranging

from cremation to stuffing & mounting. Is Lenin still preserved for viewing? I would judge it appropriate to consider cultural or religious practices.

[mikelgb]

7. Ban steeples too.

and arches. I fucking hate arches

[Posteritatis]

19. Flying buttresses should be mandatory, however. (nt)

[bikebloke]

9. Ban dying.

Then the cemetery problem is moot.

[Libertas1776]

10. Oh, but don't you see

it's just about aesthetics in keeping with the Swiss culture, just like with the minarets :sarcasm: That referendum was just a slippery slope downward for these right wing populists to push their agenda of achieving an all white Christian homogeneous Switzerland.

[Violet_Crumble]

11. LOL...

Good post...

[NickB79]

13. Then don't let Catholics, Lutherans, and Protestants have their own cemetaries either

Just dig a big fucking hole and push the bodies in with a bulldozer, I say!

[Scurrilous]

15. Swiss Muslims gain support from unexpected source - rabbis

<snip>

"Switzerland's Muslim population received support from an unexpected source on Wednesday when an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group voiced its opposition to a campaign to ban the building of minarets, distinctive architectural features of Islamic mosques, in the country.

The proposal had been put forward by the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which said minarets were a sign of Islamization.

The head of the Conference of European Rabbis, which convened this week in Moscow, issued a statement criticizing the proposed ban, saying that Europe won't defeat extreme Islam by battling freedom of religion and knocking down mosque minarets in Switzerland.

Rabbi Aba Dunner made his remarks in response to the results of a referendum held earlier this week, in which 57% of Swiss voters voted in favor of the ban.

"Only through unrelenting support of moderates within the Muslim community and promoting interfaith dialogue can European governments defeat the fundamentalist extreme Islam," Rabbi Dunner said.

The Conference of European Rabbis condemned the outcome of last Sunday's referendum in a resolution passed during their two-day meeting, international relations director Philip Carmel told Reuters on Thursday.

"We don't have a situation of the extreme right in Europe attacking Jews because they are content to attack Muslims," he said. "But the Swiss example is classic: it's not just Muslims who are going to be targeted by the extreme right."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1132517.html