(Le News) A campaign to ban the Islamic headscarf from all public schools has resurfaced in Switzerland, pushing a local controversy onto the national stage. On Monday a right-leaning group linked to the Swiss People’s Party (UDC/SVP) submitted a petition in Bern bearing 12,000 signatures, reported RTS.
The petition follows a heated debate that began last summer in the German-speaking part of the country. The row started in Eschenbach, a town of about 10,000 people in the canton of St Gallen. A Muslim woman seeking to teach at a local primary school was denied a post because she wore a headscarf, after protests from residents demanding religiously neutral education. The dispute quickly became politicised. Cantonal parliaments in St Gallen and Aargau are now debating headscarf bans, and the issue has resurfaced in Zurich as well.
