I’ve been aware of the story about the mainstream Swiss People’s Party’s rather harsh statements about dealing with immigrants to Switzerland who’ve committed crimes for some time.
The nationalist Swiss People’s Party is proposing a deportation policy that anti-racism campaigners say evokes Nazi-era practices. Under the plan, entire families would be expelled if their children are convicted of a violent crime, drug offenses or benefits fraud.
The party is trying to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to force a referendum on the issue. If approved in a referendum, the law would be the only one of its kind in Europe.
“We believe that parents are responsible for bringing up their children. If they can’t do it properly, they will have to bear the consequences,” Ueli Maurer, president of the People’s Party, told The Associated Press.
I struggled with commenting on this for some time and finally decided to limit my observations to illustrate how I approach such questions. I wonder how many of those commenting in one way or another on this subject have any knowledge whatever of Switzerland, its problems, or its politics. Do they know, for example, that Switzerland isn’t a member of the EU? (The Swiss aren’t joiners—Switzerland didn’t become a member of the United Nations until 2002). Or that women got the franchise in Switzerland in 1976? That the Swiss are the most-armed people in Europe and that Switzerland’s form of government is among the oldest in Europe?
My Swiss cousins can be very rigid, stubborn, and tough-minded but IMO the Swiss, like the people of every other country, have a right to limit residence in their country in any way they see fit. Don’t they?
I think some of the commenters have confused the Swiss with the Swedes.
