Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s right-wing UDC party is back in the news for its posters: Lausanne 7 October banned the party’s campaign posters that show a Swiss map crowded with minarets and a frowning, heavily veiled woman. The city says the posters are “racist, irrespectful and dangerous.” Basel-City also banned the posters Tuesday and Geneva will decide Wednesday. The Swiss will vote 29 November on a UDC-sponsored popular referendum to ban the construction of new minarets. Two of the six parties are in favour of it and the government is opposed.

The UDC (SVP in German; People’s Party) sparked a heated national debate and gained international attention in 2008 with posters showing several white sheep and a black one for a vote to send foreign criminals back to their home countries. In May 2009 the Swiss high court ruled in the party’s favour over another poster that showed Muslims prostrate in front of the Swiss federal palace in Bern.

French authorities are also up in arms over UDC advertising: the mayor of Annemasse, Christian Dupessey, says he is taking the UDC to court for defamation and racism over an insert that appeared in the Tribune de Geneve calling for Genevans to vote against the Ceva regional transport system to keep out the “racaille” (skum, riff-raff) from Annemasse.

The UDC has not commented on the moves, but Oskar Freysinger, one of the party’s leaders, told a group of Swiss journalists (including GenevaLunch) in 2008 who were asking about the sheep posters that he wasn’t bothered if they upset people or if the media was hard on his party as a result because they achieved their purpose: good publicity. Philippe Leuba, a cantonal councilor in Vaud, is quoted by 24 Heures as saying that he is not sure a ban is the best thing because, among other things, it gives “considerable publicity” to the UDC’s campaign.

Links to other sites: 24 Heures, Fre,  TSR, Fre

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