Swiss ban on face covering will apply from 2025 - SWI swissinfo.ch
From January 1, 2025, it will be forbidden to cover the face in public places throughout Switzerland.
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/46758406
Is there also a face mask exception? They aren't handy for just pandemics.
Yes there is
I don't know how I feel about this.
Which is worse, the government telling people that they can't wear certain clothes (and let's be real, at least some of the proponents of implementing this are doing it in an Islamophobic way), or allowing a practice that's clearly intended to cover women up and treat them as second class citizens within their Islamic culture?
Which is right? Which is wrong? I feel so conflicted about this.
I don't want the state dictating dress code, that's absolutely ludicrous, but I also don't want an oppressive sexist religion dictating that women need to cover up otherwise (ghasp!) a man might see their skin.
i'd say that the better way to let women dress freely is working to get rid of the pressures on them in the first place, rather than forcing them to not dress a certain way in an attempt to give them choice in what to wear.
Yeah it's a lot harder than simply banning face coverings, but that's because it actually solves the problem rather than swiping it under the rug..
That would be great, but how exactly? Banning religions that encourage/forces it?
The only reason I could see is to highly educate everyone but that's way easier said than done.
Yeah but... how?
It is also permitted for artistic and entertainment performances and for advertising purposes.
Ah they learned from the Austrians
Scarfs, costume masks and medical face masks are allowed in Austria too, but only under special circumstances, e.g. costumes are permitted only for "customs events" (Brauchtumsveranstaltungen) and thus are forbidden for everyday use.
Medical reasons to my knowledge is defined rather limited. There's an exception but in doubt you have to show a doctor's note saying that you need to wear a mask, otherwise you could be forced to unmask. So if you choose to do preventative masking but aren't ill yourself this isn't technically allowed - this isn't widely enforced, but still something that wasn't thought quite through.
Non-European here. What's the purpose of bans like these? The obvious cause appears to be racism/Islamophobia, but is there something else?
You got it. Sometimes politicians say its for "security" so when someone is at a protest they can just arrest them just for wearing a mask.
that was covered by already existing laws afaik
Yep, islamophobia. Our far right party passed it. They also passed a law banning minarets.
Making video surveillance more effective is one.
As a muslim, the book mentions covering up hair only. Face covering is never mentioned anywhere, and people using it are misinterpreting Quran.
But what about Covid masks? What if another pandemic happen?
Good move. Some religious practices shouldn't be legal if they lower public safety. I don't see why couldn't Muslim woman just wear simple Hijabs, if they want to preserve their religious freedom.
You’re way more likely to be killed by a far-right terrorist than a muslim terrorist. If you want to protect public safety, I feel like a far better way to do it would be to outlaw far-right content on social media and other online platforms.
There are already laws in various places which prohibit hate speech, including on the internet. I don't see how banning anything, far-right related or not is a good concept, since someone would be responsible of determining what 'far-right content' is, and that can only cause political repressions of groups that are against current governing power(s). I don't understand why would anyone want to see the censorship and repressions that are on par with ones in Russia. We are better than that.
I don't think it has anything to do with public saftey. That wasn't even a major argument during the campaign leading up the vote.
Can you name me a few cases where a Muslim woman threatened public safety in Switzerland, and then she couldn't be identified because of a burka? I really want to know if there was a problem to solve.
Probably there's some motivation to be able to identify people who protest or people who don't want to be filmed in public (especially with facial recognition technology becoming a reality).
But just say the law is there to annoy religious people and people will agree to a ban.
