National Council committee urges swastika ban as soon as possible
Published: Friday, Feb 23rd 2024, 18:00
Zurück zu Live Feed
The National Council's Legal Affairs Committee (RK-N) still wants to quickly ban the use of National Socialist symbols in public. Only in a second step does it want to implement a more comprehensive ban on extremist symbols.
The committee is in favor of the swift implementation of a ban on National Socialist symbols, the parliamentary services announced on Friday. It had therefore decided to stick to its own parliamentary initiative with this demand as well as a parliamentary initiative by former Zurich SP National Councillor Angelo Barrile with the same request.
According to the information provided, the corresponding decisions were made relatively clearly by 15 votes to 2 with 5 abstentions and 14 votes to 2 with 6 abstentions respectively.
Compromise offer to the Council of States
With these decisions, the Commission is taking a stand against the Council of States - and at the same time making it an offer of compromise by proposing a step-by-step approach.
At the end of October, the small chamber had spoken out in favor of a more general regulation and adopted a motion from its own Legal Affairs Committee (RK-S). At the same time, it rejected a motion from the National Council calling for a special law against National Socialist symbols.
During the debate in the Council of States, supporters of a special law had already complained that the approach ultimately preferred by the small chamber would delay a solution. This was particularly problematic in light of the increase in anti-Semitic incidents following the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
The National Council will deal with the broadly worded motion from the Council of States in the special session in April. The RK-N recommends its adoption by the full Council by 16 votes to 2 with 4 abstentions.
The upper chamber will also have to decide on the two initiatives by the RK-N and Barriles. If it accepts them, the Council of States' Legal Affairs Committee will have its turn again. The latter rejected the initiatives during the first debate in mid-October - and thus refused to allow the RK-N to draft a bill.
According to the current legal situation, the display of symbols in Switzerland is only punishable if they are used to promote a racist ideology. Parliament has so far refrained from imposing a total ban on racist symbols, in particular due to the difficulty of defining the symbols to be banned.
©Keystone/SDA
German 
English 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic