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RACISM

Tourist body ‘fuming’ over Oprah ‘racism’

Swiss tourism officials have expressed dismay over an upmarket Zurich store's refusal to sell celebrity US talk-show host Oprah Winfrey a handbag, in what she describes as a racist incident during her visit last month to attend Tina Turner’s wedding.

Tourist body 'fuming' over Oprah 'racism’
Oprah Winfrey is one of the world's wealthiest women. Photo: Ben Gabbe/Getty Images North America/AFP

Winfrey told the Entertainment Tonight programme on CBS an assistant in a luxury boutique had refused to show her a black "lizard or alligator skin" handbag she had asked to see.

"We are fuming – this person acted terribly wrong. We are sorry this happened to Oprah," Switzerland Tourism said in a Tweet.

Spokeswoman Daniela Bär told the Blick newspaper the incident was damaging for Switzerland's image but was a one-off that wouldn't have a lasting impact on the country's popularity with tourists.

However, she called on the store owner to make a full apology.

Winfrey said the store assistant had told her the bag would be too expensive for her and offered to show her others instead.

The celebrity is one of the wealthiest women in the world with a fortune estimated at 2.5 billion dollars.

Having been refused the bag, Winfrey says she left the shop without buying anything.

She said she rarely experienced racism – possibly because she was so well known.

Blick said the incident occurred in the chic Trois Pommes store whose owner Trudie Götz was also a guest at Turner’s wedding.

She apologized for her assistant’s behaviour, saying there had been “a misunderstanding between her and Oprah”.

The bag cost 35,000 francs and was placed behind a security panel, the paper said.

“We don’t have any facial recognition here,” Blick quoted Götz as saying.

The assistant's conduct was "completely unacceptable", Markus Hünig, president of the Zurich Bahnhofstrasse Association, told the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper.

Hünig said he had never heard of anything like it.

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SWISS CITIZENSHIP

Zurich looks to change fees for Swiss citizenship process

Some candidates applying for Swiss citizenship in the city of Zurich will pay less for the procedure, while for others the costs will be higher.

Zurich looks to change fees for Swiss citizenship process

The naturalisation process in Switzerland’s largest city used to cost 1,200 francs for those coming from abroad, and 500 francs for foreigners born in Switzerland.

This week, the municipal council decided, however, to ‘equalise’ the cost: all foreigners, regardless of their place of birth, would pay a flat fee of 750 francs.

People under the age of 25 would apply for free. The fee could also be partially or completely waived for people without financial means to afford this charge.

While various parties quibbled over the new amount — with left-wing parties seeking to drop it to 500 francs — it was ultimately decided that 750 francs would be fair, as it would cover all the administrative costs.

‘Incentive for naturalisation’

During the debate, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) argued against lowering the cost of obtaining citizenship.

“If it doesn’t cost anything, it’s no longer worth anything,” its deputies said.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Social Democrat Maya Kägi Götz pointed out that a lower fee would provide an “incentive for naturalisation.”

This view was shared by a Green councillor, Urs Riklin, who said that making the naturalisation process more ‘affordable’ is good for the city and Switzerland in general.

“Everyone should be able to participate in democracy,” he said.

The final decision on this move will be taken at one of the forthcoming council meetings.

READ ALSO: How much does it cost to become a Swiss citizen?

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