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PARIS - Think Alpine horns, cowbells, snow-capped mountains and no minarets, that's how Swiss right-wingers want their country's landscape to look.
And they want it codified by referendum.
It is a proposal that is stirring fierce debate about the country's reputation for tolerance as well as concern about
potential Muslim backlash abroad, similar to the outrage triggered by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark.
Those behind the initiative include 35 politicians in the country's biggest political party, the Swiss Peoples Party (SVP), which has two ministers in the coalition Government and 55 of the 200 seats in the National Council, the larger of the two chambers in the Swiss Parliament.
They argue that minarets, slender towers topped with a crescent that are attached to mosques, are a symbol of "Islamist circles" seeking to widen their influence in Switzerland and, supposedly, impose Islamic law. The minaret, they say, poses a risk to community relations.
They say they do not oppose mosques or Muslims' rights to worship. Instead, they argue, minarets fall under article 72 of the Swiss constitution, which allows the authorities to take measures to maintain peace among different faiths.
"The minaret has nothing to do with religion," says SVP legislator Ulrich Schluer, who is president of the referendum campaign committee. "It's not mentioned in the Koran or other important Islamic texts. It just symbolises a place where Islamic law is established."
In order to force the referendum, the campaign has to muster 100,000 signatures by November 2008.
The Swiss have a long history of referendums, some of them touching on constitutional issues but others dealing with relatively minor issues.
This move, though, has touched a painful nerve. While Switzerland is proud of its long tradition as a place of tolerance and a refuge for the persecuted, it is also a deeply conservative country where many fear the national identity is at threat from immigration, for foreigners now account for more than a fifth of the population of 7.5 million.
And, as in other European countries, 9/11 has bred religious tensions.
Representatives of the Muslim community are stunned by the referendum idea.
"As an organisation that is helping Muslims to integrate and become model citizens, we are shocked by this initiative," says Adel Mejri, president of the League of Swiss Muslims.
Mejri said the initiative was absurd, because Swiss Muslims did not even consider minarets to be a priority.
Only two out of more than 140 mosques in Switzerland have a minaret, one in Geneva, the other in Zurich, and neither is used to make the traditional loudspeaker call to prayer.
In two cantons, Solothurn and Bern, plans to build a minaret were opposed, but because of construction regulations.
Mejri noted a report last September by the Federal Commission against Racism, which found Swiss Muslims faced widespread discrimination. This, he contended, could be worsened by the minarets affair.
"We can find solutions through dialogue, but the aggressive, or dare I say 'Islamophobic', way in which this is being treated could have unforeseen consequences. This kind of initiative threatens peace and hurts Muslims," he told the agency swissinfo.
Opponents of the referendum scheme brand it a propaganda stunt with an eye on parliamentary elections in October, while others fear that, like the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, it could balloon into a source of hatred of Switzerland and the Swiss in Muslim countries.
Critics include Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, who said it "endangers the safety of Swiss interests and Swiss men and women".
The country's Protestant and Roman Catholic churches have rallied behind Muslims, saying the constitutional right to religious freedom permits the building of minarets.
Fondue pot
* Switzerland has 310,000 Muslims, only 12 per cent of whom are Swiss citizens.
* Many of them are immigrants from the Balkans and Turkey.
* Foreigners now account for more than a fifth of the population of 7.5 million.
* Only two out of more than 140 mosques in Switzerland have a minaret.
