mardi 8 décembre 2009

Minarets: Freysinger face au monde sur Al-Jazira ce soir à 20h00

Oskar Freysinger face au monde sur Al-Jazira

Tous les mardis soir, «Directions opposées» est l'émission phare de la chaîne d'informations en continu.
Antenne 20h ce soir.
à voir ici

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/



Oskar Freysinger fera face au monde arabe ce soir sur Al-Jazira. Le Matin explique que l'UDC valaisan, fer de lance de l'initiative anti-minarets, est l'invité d'une émission hautement polémique sur l'expansion de l'islamophobie en Europe. L'inquiétude pointe chez certains parlementaires à Berne. De son côté, le Bund présente la planisphère de la corruption, sur laquelle la Suisse fait plutôt bonne figure. A Genève, les plans du nouveau Conseil d'Etat sont analysés par la Tribune.

Oskar Freysinger face au monde arabe Oskar Freysinger est ce soir l'invité de la chaîne arabe Al-Jazira, raconte Le Matin , qui annonçait hier la tenue de ce débat dans l'émission phare de la chaîne d'informations en continu. En direct et en prime time devant 80 millions de téléspectateurs arabes, l'UDC valaisan a accepté de débattre. Face à lui Azam Hamimi, un proche du Hamas, qui défend les attentats suicide. Le Matin suspecte Oskar Freysinger d'ignorer le ton de l'émission. Le principe de ce show intitulé "directions opposées": un combat de coq de 60 minutes. "Le rôle du journaliste est de provoquer les interlocuteurs", précise Hasni Abidi, directeur du Centre d'études et de recherches sur le monde arabe et méditerranéen. Et d'ajouter: "Oskar Freysinger a une lourde responsabilité. Il ne devra pas déraper. Pour beaucoup de téléspectateurs arabes, il incarnera la voix officielle de la Suisse". A Berne, plusieurs parlementaires cachaient mal des grimaces de crispation. D'autant que le thème du débat, "la montée de l'islamophobie en Europe", veut prouver qu! e le modèle suisse est en train de s'exporter. "Le mieux, répond Oskar Freysinger, qui sera en duplex de Berne, est que j'y aille au naturel. J'expliquerai que le vote sur les minarets n'est pas contre l'islam, ni les musulmans". Antenne 20h ce soir.

Minaret ban wins Swiss support

About 400,000 Muslims live in Switzerland, most from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey [Reuters]

Voters in Switzerland have approved a ban on the construction of minarets on mosques, official results show.

Of those who cast votes in Sunday's poll, 57.5 per cent approved the ban, while only four cantons out of 26 rejected the proposals.

The result paves the way for a constitutional amendment to be made.

"The Federal Council [government] respects this decision. Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted," the government, which had opposed the ban, said in a statement.

The Swiss People's Party (SVP) had forced a referendum on the issue after it collected 100,000 signatures within 18 months from eligible voters.

Unexpected result

Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Bern, the Swiss capital, said: "There is concern in Switzerland undoubtedly about what is being seen as the spread of radical Islam, but the Muslim community here has always been regarded as fairly moderate.

in depth

  Swiss brace for minaret backlash
"They were saying that they wanted to see this proposal defeated, so I'm sure it is a real shock to them that at the moment we are seeing that most of the people here have voted in favour of [the ban]."

After the official results were known, far-right politicians celebrated, while the government sought to assure the Muslim minority that a ban on minarets was "not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture".

Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Switzerland's justice minister, said the result "reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies".

"These concerns have to be taken seriously ... However, the Federal Council takes the view that a ban on the construction of new minarets is not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies," she said.

Farhad Afshar, who heads the Co-ordination of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland, said that "the most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote."

'Anti-Islamic hate'

Supporters of the ban say minarets represent the growth of an alien ideology and legal system that have no place in the Swiss democracy.

"Forced marriages and other things like cemeteries separating the pure and impure - we don't have that in Switzerland, and we do not want to introduce it," Ulrich Schlueer, co-president of the Initiative Committee to ban minarets, said.

FROM THE BLOGS
A shocking result
By Alan Fisher 
in
"Therefore, there's no room for minarets in Switzerland."

But Switzerland's Muslims said that the referendum had fuelled anti-Islamic feeling in the country.

"The initiators have achieved something everyone wanted to prevent, and that is to influence and change the relations to Muslims and their social integration in a negative way," Taner Hatipoglu, the president of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Zurich, said.

"We are frightened, and if the atmosphere continues to be like this and if the anti-Islamic hate increases, then the Muslims indeed will not feel safe anymore. This of course is very unpleasant."

About 400,000 Muslims live in Switzerland, whose population is just under eight million. Most Muslim citizens are immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey.

Although Islam is the country's second largest religion after Christianity, there are only four mosques with minarets in the whole country.

Posters by those backing the ban showed a figure of a woman shrouded from head to foot in a burka. Behind her is the Swiss flag, shaped like a map of the country, with black minarets shooting up out of it like missiles.

The cities of Basel, Lausanne and Fribourg banned the billboards, saying they painted a "racist, disrespectful and dangerous image" of Islam.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee called the posters discriminatory and said Switzerland would violate international law if it bans minarets.

 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies




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