Keeping the [British] people in the dark.

One of the important reasons for the existence of the British Gazette is to report on those events the BBC plays down. The words “plays down” are used quite deliberately. Today, the Swiss people in a binding referendum have voted to ban the construction of minarets. For some time – four years – now this referendum campaign has been a “hot topic” in Switzerland but until now has not been featured on the BBC TV News. It has of course been reported upon by the BBC – on their website, but those wanting information will have had to search for it. In other words, you have to know about the campaign beforehand.
That is the way the BBC likes it. They take the view that reporting this might spark controversy in the U.K. and therefore it is best kept off the “prime time” TV News which serves as the source for most Britons as to what is going on in the world.
Of course with the U.K.’s large Muslim population, a reasonable person would consider that a referendum campaign to ban the construction of minarets in a fellow European democracy would be something that would be of interest to most British people – especially the Muslim population of the U.K.
This non reporting demonstrates the extent to which the BBC and the politically correct establishment control the news agenda. The BBC sees its job as keeping the public in order and not to “rock the boat”. Reporting the Swiss Campaign on prime time TV would have led to some British people thinking, “why not here” and it would also have fuelled renewed interest in the BNP. This the BBC was not going to allow to happen. This is why it is so important that the British Gazette, Speaks the Truth unto the Nation. Because the BBC no longer does.
Switzerland has a Muslim population of about 400,000 in a country of 7,500,000 people. Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity.
The referendum was undertaken due to the efforts of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) – the country’s biggest party – and Federal Democratic Union gathering 100,000 + signatures to bring the referendum about. It claims that the turrets or towers attached to mosques from where followers are called to prayer symbolise a “political-religious claim to power.”
Campaign posters showed the Swiss flag covered in missile-like minarets and the portrait of a woman in a black burka.
The SVP claimed the minaret was not essential for worship, but was rather a symbol of Sharia law, and as such was incompatible with Switzerland’s secular constitution.
SVP politician Ulrich Schueler and leader of the “stop” minaret campaign stated: “The minaret is a symbol of conquest and power which marks the will to introduce Sharia law as has happened in some other European cities. We will not accept that.”
Many Swiss agreed with him. However as expected Switerland’s Muslim population were opposed. One of them, Mutalip Karaademi, an ethnic Albanian 26 years a resident in Switzerland, was angry at what he saw as unfair discrimination against his faith. “They seem to think we are all criminals or terrorists – that’s like saying all Italians are in the mafia. A minaret is a symbol nothing more. It is nice to see a house of god with a minaret or a church steeple or cupolas on a synagogue. They call us terrorists. They call us Taliban, so many labels all wrong. They insult us. We love this country, almost more than our own. Our children were born here.”
The SVP however say they have no intention of preventing anyone from practising their faith.
“We don’t have anything against Muslims,” said Oskar Freysinger, member of parliament for the SVP. “But we don’t want minarets. The minaret is a symbol of a political and aggressive Islam, it’s a symbol of Islamic law. The minute you have minarets in Europe it means Islam will have taken over. We have our civil laws here. Banning minarets would send a clear signal that our European laws, our Swiss laws, have to be accepted. And if you want to live here, you must accept them. If you don’t, then go back.”
The campaign was very much a “grass root” campaign. It came from the ranks of the ordinary Swiss people, not the elite and the establishment who were for the most part overwhelmingly opposed to the campiagn and supported the Muslims.
For example, Reinhard Schulze, professor of Islamic Studies at Berne University has stated: “I think Swiss Muslims will be angry and bitter over this. And we know that anger and bitterness among a community can lead to radicalisation, even to militancy.”
Switzerland’s Commission Against Racism said the campaign defamed the country’s Muslim minority, stirred up hatred and could threaten public peace.
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the Swiss justice minister, suggested that a vote for a ban could fuel Islamist radicalism and violent protests, such as those that greeted Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2006. She stated: “This is not an appropriate instrument for combating religious extremism. It risks the opposite, of serving the cause of fanatics.”
In response, Oskar Freysinger, compared these warnings of anger in the Muslim world to the arguments used by “appeasers” of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. “It is what Chamberlain thought in Munich in 1938. If these are the consequences, it is the proof that what we are doing to defend ourselves is legitimate.”