Libya’s leader called for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland on Thurday because of its ban on mosque minarets — escalating a long-running diplomatic feud between the two countries.
Muammar Qaddafi also urged Muslims everywhere to boycott Swiss products and to bar Swiss planes and ships from the airports or seaports of Muslim nations.
“Those who destroy God’s mosques deserve to be attacked through jihad, and if Switzerland was on our borders, we would fight it,” Qaddafi was quoted by Libya’s official news agency JANA as saying. “Jihad against Switzerland, against Zionism, against foreign aggression is not terrorism.”
PHOTO: AFP
He spoke before a gathering marking the birthday of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed in the Libyan city of Benghazi.
Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel declined to comment on Qaddafi’s call for a holy war against the neutral Alpine republic.
In November, Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets in a controversial decision that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population.
Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic and business groups warned that the decision could damage relations with Muslim nations and wealthy Islamic investors who bank, travel and shop there.
Any Muslims who deal with Switzerland are “apostates,” Qaddafi said.
Muslims comprise about 6 percent of Switzerland’s 7.5 million people. Many are refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and about one in 10 actively practices the religion, the government said.
Anxieties about growing Muslim minorities have rippled across Europe in recent years, leading to legal changes in some countries.
France has banned headscarves in schools and is considering legislation to ban head-to-toe coverings for women. Some German states have introduced bans on head scarves for Muslim women teaching in public schools.
The Swiss ban on minarets, however, was one of the most extreme reactions.
Meanwhile, UN Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze said yesterday that calls for jihad by a head of state were unacceptable.
Asked by journalists about one state calling for jihad against the other, Ordzhonikidze said: “I believe that such declarations on the part of the head of state are inadmissible in international relations. I’m not even talking about actions.
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