The Iranian Foreign Minister expressed his country's pique over the recent referendum in Switzerland over building codes for mosques in that country.
Iran warned Switzerland on Saturday of “consequences” over a referendum banning the building of new mosque minarets and urged Bern not to enforce the ban, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The vote went “against the prestige of a country which claims to be an advocate of democracy and human rights,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told Swiss counterpart Micheline Calmy-Rey in a telephone call, quoted by IRNA.
Mottaki said last week’s referendum would “damage Switzerland’s image as a pioneer of respecting human rights among Muslims’ public opinion.”
“Values such as tolerance, dialogue and respecting others’ religions should never be put to referendum,” he argued, warning Switzerland of the “consequences” of anti-Islamic acts, IRNA reported.
The foreign minister hoped the Bern government would soon “take necessary steps and find a constitutional way to prevent imposition of the ban.”
I mean, first of all, the Swiss clearly made a mistake allowing the citizenry of the country ANY voice at all. Of course, that is the funny thing about democracy--the people say the strangest things and periodically do something that their betters, the government, do not like.
Fancy that.
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