(JTA) Swiss voters passed a referendum on banning face-covering veils, prompting the country’s Muslim and Jewish groups to protest that infringement on religious freedoms.
The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities and the Platform for Liberal Jews in Switzerland said the ban, which passed with 51% of the vote on Sunday, “restricts and violates several conditions of religious freedom.” In their joint statement, the groups also said they are “concerned that further legislative or federal popular initiatives could further undermine religious freedom in the future.”
The Swiss “have a long history of trying to curb migrations through banning religious practice,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis and a Zurich native, wrote in a separate statement.
