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RACIAL PROFILING

Zurich man takes racial profiling case to European human rights court

Zurich resident Mohamed Wa Baile says he was the victim of racial profiling in 2015. Swiss courts didn't agree. Now he is is taking his case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Published: 10 September 2018 11:19 CEST
Zurich man takes racial profiling case to European human rights court
Wa Baile was stopped by police after he 'averted' his gaze at Zurich's main train station. File photo: Depositphotos

One morning in February 2015, Mohamed Wa Baile, originally from Kenya but the holder of a Swiss passport for a decade, was stopped by two police officers in Zurich’s main train station. The officers demanded to see his ID.

Wa Baile, a librarian at the ETH technology institute in Zurich, asked if the officers were looking for a person of colour. When the officers said no, Wa Baile refused to present his papers.

The police officers then conducted a search, releasing him after they found he was carrying a retirement insurance card.

Read also: No Asians – Zurich's ETH hit by racism

Wa Baile was also fined 100 Swiss francs for failing to obey a police instruction.

However, the 44-year-old father of two contested the fine and took the matter to court.

The case eventually made it all the way up to the Federal Supreme Court in Switzerland after both a Zurich district court and appeals court ruled there was no evidence the police had singled out Wa Baile because of his skin colour.

The top court ruled that Wa Baile’s case had rested too heavily on the fact that a police officer had stated in his original report into the incident that he had been stopped because he had averted his gaze.

The court said situational factors were also at play: Zurich is a long-distance transport hub and as such, it sees higher levels of crime.

Under Swiss law, people can only be asked for ID if there are reasonable ground to do so. Wa Baile believes this was not the case for him and has now lodged an application for the matter to be heard by European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) in Strasbourg.

A judgement in the case could set a precedent on the issue of racial profiling with Switzerland's Alliance against Racial Profiling arguing Swiss courts are guilty of a miscarriage of justice and of failing to uphold international principles of non-discrimination.

The EHCR should make clear to police in Zurich that such profiling is not acceptable, Wa Baile was quoted as saying in Swiss tabloid Blick.

“I want to be part of the resistance against racial profiling and motivate people to be more courageous and resist racist police checks,” he said.

RACISM

Swiss parliament wants ban on extremist symbols

Swiss lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favour of banning the display of extremist and racist symbols, starting with those of a Nazi nature.

Published: 18 April 2024 03:50 CEST
Swiss parliament wants ban on extremist symbols

The National Council lower house of parliament voted by 133 to 38 in favour of banning the public use of racist, violence-promoting and extremist symbols, such as Nazi symbols.

Switzerland, which stayed neutral during World War II, has come under pressure to fall in line with a number of other European countries in banning Nazi symbols.

Full bans are in place in Germany, Poland and several other eastern European nations.

The Swiss parliament as a whole is now in favour, after the Council of States upper house voted for such a ban in December.

The plans would also cover gestures, words, salutes or flags.

The National Council also voted by 132 to 40 for the measures to be introduced in stages — a move the government supports.

A ban on easily identifiable Nazi symbols could be implemented quickly, while other racist and extremist symbols could be identified and banned further down the line.

“We don’t want a swastika or a Hitler salute in our country, ever!” said Green lawmaker Raphael Mahaim.

“Today, in Switzerland, it is possible, it is even permitted, to display a flag with a swastika on your balcony. It is possible to put a flag bearing the image of the SS on the windshield of your car. It is possible to give the Hitler salute in public spaces.

“This situation is intolerable.”

Debate on other symbols 

Justice minister Beat Jans said the government, called the Federal Council, had hitherto relied on prevention as the main pillar against racism, but now thinks legal measures are needed.

“Anti-Semitic incidents, particularly those involving the use of Nazi symbols, have increased sharply in recent times,” he said.

“Against this background, the Federal Council decided last week that it is positive about the gradual implementation of the motion.”

He said the government wanted to introduce a special law which would mean fines could therefore be imposed.

As for banning Nazi symbols first, Mahaim accepted that debates on other symbols “will be much more difficult”.

“For example, what about the Z symbol of Putin’s army of aggression? What about the Ku Klux Klan symbol? What about the hammer and sickle symbol?” he said.

The no votes and abstentions all came from the hard-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which is the largest faction in the lower chamber.

SVP lawmaker Barbara Steinemann said Switzerland had successfully been able to keep extremism down to “a base of a few meaningless weirdos”.

She said a ban on symbols would not prevent the “rampant” anti-Semitic attitudes in universities and “intellectual milieus”.

Steinemann said Nazi symbolism had risen only since the Gaza war erupted in October, and “even if you don’t like to hear it, this is the influence of immigration from non-European cultures.

“We are literally engaging in symbolic politics, and we shouldn’t be doing that,” the Zurich lawmaker said.

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