Geneva bans hate symbols in public spaces
Published: Sunday, Jun 9th 2024, 17:10
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Anyone who displays hate symbols such as the swastika in public in the canton of Geneva will be liable to prosecution in future. Voters clearly approved a law to this effect on Sunday. A bill to extend the right to vote for foreigners, on the other hand, failed at the ballot box.
Geneva is the first canton in Switzerland to enshrine a ban on the display or wearing of extremist symbols and emblems in public spaces in its constitution. The law met with broad acceptance among the people of Geneva. 104,520 voters (84.7 percent) put a yes vote in the ballot box. Only 18,899 people (15.3 percent) rejected the bill. The voter turnout was 46.1 percent.
With the exception of the SVP, all Geneva parties supported the bill. The demand originally came from their ranks. The author of the draft was Thomas Bläsi, then a member of Geneva's SVP cantonal council and now a member of the National Council.
However, the SVP changed course. While the members of the Grand Council supported the law, the delegates of the Geneva SVP later argued that such a ban would be impossible to implement.
Geneva plays a pioneering role
With this ban, the canton of Geneva is faster than the federal government in implementing it. This is because racist, violent and extremist symbols are also to be banned in public at national level. After the Council of States at the end of December, the National Council approved a corresponding motion in April.
There is also a corresponding proposal in the canton of Fribourg. In March, the cantonal parliament voted in favor of a ban on Nazi symbols against the wishes of the government.
Voting rights for foreigners not extended
Furthermore, a clear majority of Geneva's electorate rejected an extension of voting rights for foreigners on Sunday. 74,580 Genevans (60.9 percent) said no to the left-wing initiative entitled "Une vie ici, une voix ici" ("One life here, one vote here"). 47,911 voters (39.1 percent) voted Yes in the ballot box.
The FDP, the Center Party, the SVP and the Mouvement cityoyen genevois (MCG) opposed the initiative, which was submitted to the people without a counter-proposal.
If this bill had been accepted, foreign nationals living in Geneva who have been in Switzerland for at least eight years would have been granted the right to vote and stand for election at cantonal level. This would mean that the canton, which has the highest proportion of foreigners in Switzerland at just under 42%, would have granted foreign nationals more political rights than anywhere else in Switzerland.
At present, foreign nationals in Geneva have the right to vote and stand for election at communal level. At cantonal level in Switzerland, only the cantons of Neuchâtel and Jura grant foreign nationals the right to vote and stand for election, but not the right to stand for election.
Crèches and euthanasia
The other two bills concerned legislative changes that the new right-wing majority in the Grand Council had adopted and against which a referendum was held. The votes concerned euthanasia and working conditions in private daycare centers. In both areas, everything remains the same.
The minimum requirements for working conditions in private crèches will not be affected. Day nurseries remain obliged to comply with a collective employment contract or industry practice.
The right-wing party had argued that relaxing working conditions would create more nursery places. The electorate rejected the corresponding law with 68,452 votes against (56.9%) and 51,772 votes in favor (43.1%).
The result was also clear on the issue of euthanasia. 89,037 people (76.6%) were against a new health law that would have called into question the possibility of euthanasia in retirement and nursing homes in Geneva. 27,255 people (23.4 percent) voted yes in the ballot box.
©Keystone/SDA
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