Swiss liberals are considering a new referendum to overturn the ban on building new minarets in the country, Sunday papers reported, as Libya's Muamar Gaddafi warned the ban played into the hands of terrorists.
Club Helvetique, a group of over 20 Swiss intellectuals, will draw up an action plan to overturn the ban, which has drawn widespread criticism abroad and prompted hundreds of people to take to the streets this weekend in Zurich, Basel and Berne. "A new initiative is the most democratic way of achieving this," constitutional lawyer Joerg Mueller told Sonntag.
Voters adopted the ban in a referendum a week ago, defying the government and parliament which had warned the right-wing initiative violated the Swiss constitution, freedom of religion and a cherished tradition of tolerance.
Two complaints questioning the legality of ban had already been handed to Switzerland's Federal Court, Sonntag said.
Politicians from the SVP, Switzerland's biggest party, and the conservative Federal Democratic Union gathered enough signatures to force the referendum on the initiative which opposed the "Islamisation of Switzerland". "The Club Helvetique is an association of bad losers," Sonntag reported SVP Vice-President Christoph Blocher as saying.
The United Nations last week denounced Switzerland's constitutional ban on building minarets as "deeply divisive", "clearly discriminatory" and at odds with the country's obligations under international law.