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| Alarm at call for abolishment of Swiss racism law
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Ueli Maurer, leader of UDC and former justice minister
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GENEVA (EJP)--- The Democratic Union of the Centre, the right-wing party that won a majority in the last Swiss elections, has proposed to the abolishment of Switzerland’s anti-racist law, arguing it impedes freedom of speech.
The Federation of the Swiss Jewish communities has expressed concern after the declaration by Ueli Maurer, the Democratic Union’s leader and previously Switzerland’s justice minister, and members of his party, known as UDC.
The law was adopted on Jan. 1, 1995, and forbids any discrimination against a person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion. It also mandates punishment for denying or attempting to justify a genocide or crime against humanity, especially the Holocaust.
The UDC holds that the law is too abstract and that Swiss do not understand what they can and cannot say in public. Maurer said his party was fighting for freedom of speech in Switzerland, and that everyone should have the right to express what they thought, even if it was not right.
Moreover, the UDC charges that the law has encouraged a passive form of racism. They say the penal law is not the best way to combat to revisionism, and that more faith should be placed in people’s ability to discern between right and wrong.
Still, others argue the law is not harsh enough.
Tobias Hirschi, a member of the extreme-right party PSN, was recently acquitted by a Solothurn court after being charged for carrying a banner with the slogan “Who directs the workers?” next to a Star of David in a May 2005 demonstration.
Hirschi was accused of tapping into the Nazi ideology that led to the Holocaust, but the judge ruled that although the banner was anti-Semitic, there was no link to the Nazis. As such, it did not violate the anti-racism law.
The debate on the law began after Swiss Minister of Justice Christophe Blocher, a former UDC leader, declared during a visit to Turkey that everyone has the right to an opinion and the right to express it, and that the law should be abolished.
It was enacted in another case in 2005 after a July visit by Turkish politician Dogu Perinçek to Lausanne. Perinçek denied a genocide of Armenians by Turkey took place in 1915. The Swiss government, which has officially recognized the genocide, charged him with negating it.
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