A town official sorts out envelopes containing votes at their arrival at the counting center the day of a Swiss vote on banning face coverings in a referendum in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 7, 2021.
Some 1,426,992 voters were in favour of the ban, while 1,359,621 were against, on a 50.8 percent turnout. The Swiss government opposes the measure and says that people covering their faces is a "marginal" issue. Campaign posters reading "Stop radical Islam!" and "Stop extremism!", featuring a woman in a black niqab, have been plastered around Swiss cities.The ban would mean that nobody could cover their face completely in public, whether in shops or the open countryside.The vote came at a time when face masks are mandatory in shops and on public transport due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"It's a huge relief," said Mohamed Hamdaoui, a regional lawmaker in the Bern canton and the founder of the "A Face Discovered" campaign. Several other European countries have bans for particular contexts, such as in schools and universities.Their counter-proposal, which would have been automatically triggered if the initiative was rejected, would have required people to show their faces to the authorities if necessary for identification, such as at borders.
Switzerland bans face coverings that don't exist. FACT: 'According to research by the University of Lucerne, almost no-one in Switzerland wears a burka and only around 30 women wear the niqab.' SOURCE: BBC
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