Zurich Votes to Keep 'Suicide Tourism' Alive
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Voters in the Swiss canton (state) of Zurich have overwhelmingly rejected calls to ban assisted suicide or to outlaw the practice for non-residents.

Zurich's cantonal voters rejected both measures on Sunday that had been backed by political and religious conservatives.

Out of more than 278,000 ballots cast, the initiative to ban assisted suicide was rejected by 85 per cent of voters and the initiative to outlaw it for foreigners was turned down by 78 per cent, according to Zurich authorities. » | Sunday, May 15, 2011

Verbunden (Schwyzertüütsch) »

Dignitas-Gründer erfreut über Zustimmung zur Sterbehilfe
Deutliche Abfuhr für die zwei Volksinitiativen der EDU: Die Zürcher Stimmberechtigten wollen die Sterbehilfe und den Sterbetourismus nicht verbieten und lehnten beide Vorlagen mit grossen Nein-Stimmenanteilen ab. Ludwig A. Minelli der Sterbehilfe-Organisation Dignitas zeigt sich in «Schweiz aktuell» hocherfreut über das klare Resultat.

SCHWEIZER FERNSEHEN: Der Gründer und Generalsekretär von Dignitas, Ludwig A. Minelli, sagte, das Zürcher Volk habe seine Schätzungen gar übertroffen. Er fühle sich in seiner Arbeit bestätigt. »

Das Video wurde in Schwyzertüütsch (Schweizerdeutsch) übertragen.

Lichtermeer an der Bahnhofstrasse
SCHWEIZER FERNSEHEN: Nun brennt sie wieder, die Weihnachtsbeleuchtung an der Bahnhofstrasse. Dieses Jahr gibt es wieder ein neues Modell namens „Lucy“.


NZZ ONLINE: «Lucy» funkelt über der Bahnhofstrasse: Neue Weihnachtsbeleuchtung in Zürich >>> sda | Donnerstag, 25. November 2010

Moderne Zeiten für Zaha Hadid


Falls Sie dieses Video nicht empfangen, bitte hier klicken.

A Zurich, débat entre femmes sur la burqa
Autour du modérateur du Tages Anzeiger, trois pros et trois antis interdiction du voile intégral en Suisse ont débattu mardi soir à Zurich. Photo : Le Temps
LE TEMPS: A l’invitation du Tages Anzeiger, six femmes ont débattu mardi soir à Zurich de l’interdiction de la burqa. Même parmi celles qui s’opposent à une interdiction, le scepticisme, voire l’agressivité envers la seule femme à porter le voile intégral lors de la discussion était palpable

Faut-il interdire la burqa, ou plutôt le niqab, pour employer le terme correct? Le Tages Anzeiger avait invité six femmes pour en débattre, mardi soir à Zurich. Parmi elles, Nora Illi, déléguée aux questions féminines du Conseil central islamique suisse, qui, drapée dans son voile intégral noir, a cristallisé l’irritation, voire l’agressivité de toutes les participantes, mêmes de celles qui s’engageaient à ses côtés pour une interdiction de la burqa. Le public, des femmes à une large majorité, était acquis à une interdiction. Extraits des échanges parfois vifs qui ont animé la soirée.

Opposée à une interdiction, la conseillère nationale Jacqueline Fehr, a commencé par attaquer violemment Nora Illi: «La question de l’interdiction de la burqa est un faux débat qui nous coûte de l’énergie que nous ferions mieux d’investir pour améliorer l’intégration. Cela ne concerne pas Mme Illi qui peut faire ce qu’elle veut. Avec le zèle de convertie qu’elle démontre, et sa manière de se couper des autres, je la considère plutôt comme membre d’une secte.» >>> Catherine Cossy | Mercredi 26 Mai 2010

Eine blöde Schweizerin, die sich zum Islam bekehrt hat. Dümmer geht’s doch nicht! (Mit Video in Schweizerdeutsch*) >>>

Soon Every Swiss Dog Could Have His Day in Court
If the Swiss adopt this stupid measure, then they will ALL be ready for admittance to the Bürghölzli in Zürich forthwith! Sicherlich können die Schweizer nicht recht bei Trost sein! Perhaps Colonel Ghadhafi was right all along. It could be that this really is the land of the infidel! They certainly don’t have enough serious things to think about, or else they wouldn’t come up with nonsense like this! Think about this: Goldfish are given more rights in Switzerland than homosexuals are in Muslim countries! Now that's something to ponder over. – © Mark

TIMES ONLINE: There is no better place than Switzerland to be a chicken. Or a hamster. Or even — though the jury is still out on this — a goldfish.

The reason is that the country has an extraordinary set of animal protection laws that closely define the obligations of pet owners and farmers.

Now it is about to go a step farther [sic]: a national referendum tomorrow will decide whether to allow animals official legal representation.

The canton of Zurich already has an animal advocate, Antoine Goetschel, a kind of courtroom Dr Dolittle who, for the past two years, has been fighting the corner for flogged horses, depressed Dalmatians and tortured fish.

A “yes” vote will place publicly funded animal welfare lawyers, like Mr Goetschel, across the country. “Then I think the Government should create some form of academy or educational forum for animal barristers,” Mr Goetschel said. “These are not skills learnt at law school.”

The tricky issues facing these new Rumpoles of the barnyard came to a head a fortnight ago in one of Mr Goetschel’s most toughly fought cases.

An angler on Lake Zurich landed a 22lb (10kg) perch after, as he subsequently bragged to a local paper, a ten-minute fight. Zurich citizens complained and the state prosecutor passed the case to Mr Goetschel, who had to determine how long an angler can struggle to land a fish before it becomes an act of cruelty. Fish-rights supporters opened a Facebook page for the dead perch — 6,000 “friends” made it probably Europe’s most popular fish — while the anglers argued fiercely that the fish felt no pain.

Mr Goetschel did not win the case. >>> Roger Boyes | Saturday, March 06, 2010

In einem fremden Kleid
Eine afghanische Burka. Bild: NZZ Online
NZZ am SONNTAG: Der Schleier ist im Westen Symbol von Fundamentalismus und Unterdrückung der Frau. Die Debatte über ein Verbot ist im Gang. Wie ist es in der Schweiz, eine Burka zu tragen? Ein Tag undercover.

Das Tram ist voll. Sie sitzt am Fenster. Draussen flirren Häuserfassaden vorbei. Der nächste Halt. Leute steigen ein. Einer, Typ Sportlehrer mit Rucksack, steuert den Sitz neben ihr an. Bis er sie sieht. Dann steuert er doch lieber daran vorbei. Ebenso eine feste Dame, die sich mit einem Gehstock durch den Gang schiebt. Obwohl das Tram schon wieder fährt. Sechs Stationen, der Platz neben ihr bleibt frei.

Umsteigen. Sie geht wie eine Greisin, um ihr Ziel sicher zu erreichen: die Tür. Unten auf dem Trottoir herrscht ein geschäftiges Durcheinander von Moonboots, Stiefeln, Lederschuhen. Es ist ziemlich kalt an diesem Morgen. Einen Fuss auf die erste Stufe, den anderen auf die zweite. So weit, so gut. Keine dreissig Sekunden vergehen, dann schreit eine sehr kleine Frau mit einer sehr grossen Sonnenbrille in ihr Gesicht: «Gopfertami!» Was ist passiert? Sie sind zusammengeprallt. Versehentlich.

Einen Tag lang bin ich in Zürich unterwegs, fahre Tram, gehe in den Strassen, kaufe ein, in der Apotheke, der Migros. Nichts Besonderes. Besonders aber ist meine Erscheinung: total verhüllt. Über Thermohosen trage ich einen Rock und über dem Rock eine Burka. Eine afghanische, um genau zu sein: blau, hinten boden-, vorne hüftlang, aus einem synthetischen, bestickten Stoff. Mein Gesicht ist bedeckt. Sogar die Augenpartie, wo sich ein Fliegengitter-artiges Fenster befindet. Ein Kollege hat sie an Kabuls «Chicken Street» gekauft, einem Hippieparadies, vor der Herrschaft der Taliban.

«Salam alaikum»

Eigentlich hätte ich sie daheim ein bisschen tragen wollen. Zur Vorbereitung. Habe ich dann doch immer irgendwie aufgeschoben. Wahrscheinlich weil dieser Fetzen Stoff alles ist, was mir, meiner Kultur, meinem Geschlecht, meiner Generation fremd ist. Freiheit? Gleichberechtigung? Selbstverständlich. Wie das Studieren an der Uni oder das Ausüben eines Berufs, den wir uns aussuchen. Niemand sonst. Schon gar nicht ein Mann. Selbstverwirklichung ist unsere Religion. Vielleicht auch Liebe. Trotzdem oder gerade deshalb will ich wissen: Wie ist es, eine Burka zu tragen? In einer Zeit, in der man sich wieder besonders ängstigt vor islamischem Fundamentalismus. In einem Land, dessen Mehrheit schon allein gegen den Bau von Minaretten stimmt. Das nun darüber debattiert, auch dieses Gewand nicht mehr zu tolerieren. >>> Von Carole Koch | Sonntag, 10. Januar 2010

Winston Churchill: Zürich Speech
COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Mr President, ladies and gentlemen,

I am honoured today by being received in your ancient university and by the address which has been given to me and which I greatly value. I wish to speak to you to-day about the tragedy of Europe, this noble Continent, comprising on the whole the fairest and the most cultivated regions of the earth enjoying a temperate and equable climate, the home of all the great parent races of the western world, the foundation of Christian faith and Christian ethics. 



It is the origin of most of the culture, arts, philosophy, and science both of ancient and modern times. If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance there would be no limit to the happiness, the prosperity, and the glory which its 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 people would enjoy. 



Yet it is from Europe that have sprung that series of frightful nationalistic quarrels, originated by the Teutonic nations in their rise to power, which we have seen in this twentieth century and even in our own lifetime wreck the peace and mar the prospects of all mankind. 



And what is this plight to which Europe has been reduced? Some of the smaller States have indeed made a good recovery, but over wide areas are a vast quivering mass of tormented, hungry, careworn, and bewildered human beings, who wait at the ruins of their cities and their homes and scan the dark horizons for the approach of some new form of tyranny or terror. 



Among the victors there is a ballet of voices, among the vanquished the sullen silence of despair. That is all that Europeans, grouped in so many ancient states and nations, and that is all that the Germanic races have got by tearing each other to pieces and spreading havoc far and wide. Indeed, but for the fact that the great republic across the Atlantic Ocean at length realised that the ruin or enslavement of Europe would involve her own fate as well, and stretched out hands of succour and guidance; but for that, the Dark Ages would have returned in their cruelty and -squalor. They may still return. 



Yet all the while there is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted by the great majority of people in many lands, would as if by a miracle transform the whole scene and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and as happy as Switzerland is to-day. 



What is this sovereign remedy? It is to recreate the European fabric, or as much of it at we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety, and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living. The process is simple. All that is needed is the resolve of hundreds of millions of men and women to do right instead of wrong and to gain as their reward blessing instead of cursing. 



Much work has been done upon this task by the exertions of the pan-European union which owes so much to and which commanded the services of the famous French patriot and statesman Aristide Briand. There is also that immense body which brought into being amidst high hopes after the first world war - the League of Nations. The league did not fail because of its principles or conceptions. It faded because those principles were deserted by those States which had brought it into being, because the Governments of those States feared to face the facts and act while time remained. This disaster must not be repeated. There is therefore much knowledge and material with which to build, and also bitter, dearly bought experience to spur. 



I was very glad to read in the newspapers a few days ago that my friend President Truman had expressed his interest and sympathy with this great design. 



There is no reason why a regional organisation of Europe Should [sic] in any way conflict with the world organisation of the United Nations. On the contrary, I believe that the larger synthesis can only survive if it is founded upon broad natural groupings. There is already a natural grouping in the western hemisphere. We British have our own commonwealth of nations. These do not weaken, on the contrary they strengthen, the world organisation. They are in fact its main support. 



And why should there not be a European group, which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this mighty continent? And why should it not take its rightful place with other great groupings and help to shape the honourable destiny of man? 


In order that this may be accomplished there must be an act of faith in which the millions of families, speaking many languages, must consciously take part. 



We all know that the two world wars through which we have passed arose out of the vain passion of the newly united Germany to play a dominating part in the world. In this last struggle crimes and massacres have been committed for which there is no parallel since the invasion of the Mongols during the thirteenth century, no equal at any in human history. The guilty must be punished. Germany must be deprived of the power to rearm and make another aggressive war. 



But when all this has been done, as it will be done. as it is being done then there must be an end to retribution. There must be what Mr Gladstone many years ago, called the ' blessed act of oblivion.' We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past and we must look to the future. We cannot afford to must look forward across the years that are to come, hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past. If Europe is to be saved from infinite misery and indeed from final doom, there must be this act of faith in the European family this 'act of oblivion against all crimes and follies of the past. Can these peoples of Europe rise to the heights of the soul and of the instinct and spirit of man? If they could, the wrongs and injuries which have been indicted would have been washed away on all sides by the miseries which have been endured. Is there any need for further floods of agony? Is the only lesson of history to be that mankind is unteachable? Let there be justice, mercy, and freedom. The peoples have only to will it and all will achieve their hearts' desire. 


I am now going to say something that will astonish you. The first step in the recreation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral and cultural leadership of Europe. There can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany. 



The structure of the United States of Europe will be such as to make the material strength of a single State less important. Small nations will count as much as large ones and gain their honour by a contribution to the common cause. The ancient states and principalities of Germany, freely joined for mutual convenience in a federal system, might take their individual places among the United States of Europe. 



I shall not try to make a detailed programme. There are hundreds of millions of people who want to be happy and free, prosperous and safe, who wish to enjoy the four freedoms of which the great President Roosevelt spoke, and live in accordance with the principles embodied in the Atlantic Charter. 



If this is their wish, if it is the wish of Europeans from many lands, they have only to say so and means can certainly be found and the machinery erected to carry that wish to full fruition. 



But I must give you warning. Time may be short. At present there is a breathing space. The cannons have ceased firing. The fighting has stopped, but the dangers have not stopped. If we are to form a United States of Europe, or whatever name it may take, we must begin now. 



In these present days we dwell strangely and precariously under the shield, and I will even say protection, of the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb is still only in the hands of a State and nation which we know, will never use it except in the cause of right and freedom, but it may well be that in a few years this awful agency of destruction will be widespread and that the catastrophe following from its use by several warring nations will not only bring to an end all that we call civilisation but may possibly disintegrate the globe itself. 



I must now sum-up the propositions which are before you. 



Our constant aim must be to build and fortify the strength of the United Nations organisation. Under and within that world concept we must recreate the European family in a regional structure called - it may be - the United States of Europe and the first practical step will be to form a Council of Europe. 



If at first all the States of Europe are not willing or able to join a union we must nevertheless proceed to assemble and combine those who will and those who can. 



The salvation of the common people of every race and of every land from war and servitude must be established on solid foundations, and must be created by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than to submit to tyranny. 



In all this urgent work France and Germany must take the lead together. Great Britain, the British Commonwealth of Nations, mighty America, and, I trust. Soviet Russia- - for then, indeed, all would be well - must be the friends and sponsors of the new Europe and must champion its right to live. 



Therefore I say to you: ' Let Europe arise.'

Winston Churchill,
September 19, 1946,
Zürich, Switzerland [Source: Council of Europe]

Die Rede in der deutschen Sprache… >>>

Le discours en français... >>>

Achtung! Zürichs verborgene Moscheen: Am Tag der offenen Moschee treten die Zürcher Muslime an die Öffentlichkeit
NZZ ONLINE: Rund vierzig islamische Zentren gibt es im Kanton Zürich. Neunzehn haben am Samstag zum Moscheebesuch eingeladen. Das Interesse war allerdings gering.

Es sei erschreckend, wie wenig die jungen Menschen in der Schweiz über den Islam wüssten, sagt Khaldoun Dia-Eddine von der Albanisch-Islamischen Gemeinschaft in Zürich. Als Dozent an einer Fachhochschule bringt er das Thema im Unterricht regelmässig auf. Manchmal verteile er Fragebogen mit elementaren Fragen zum Islam und zu seiner Geschichte, erzählt er – und die Antworten, die er zu sehen bekomme, ernüchterten ihn. Pflegen die Nichtmuslime also lieber ihre Vorurteile, als sich darum zu bemühen, den Islam besser zu verstehen? Nein, sagt Dia-Eddine klar, das Interesse am Islam sei gross. Aber anscheinend bestünden in der Bevölkerung Hemmschwellen, auf Muslime zuzugehen und mit ihnen über ihre Religion und Lebensweise zu reden. >>> Thomas Ribi | Montag, 09. November 2009

Some European Views on Terror
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY NETWORK, ETH, ZÜRICH: The gradual emergence of an Islamic counterculture in Europe risks widening the already huge gap between East and West.

"History" crops up a lot in our conflicts with violent jihadists. A war on terror was proclaimed, and then rejected, because the term was belatedly deemed as descriptively meaningless as a "war on Blitzkrieg" and as futile as a "war on drugs." Among alternatives that have been put forward are "the long war," "the first global terrorist war," the counter campaign against the "global jihadist insurgency," and an "anti-Islamic extremism" battle.

Commentators and politicians seek to give our opponents a historically familiar face by substituting steel helmets for the checkered keffiyahs and turbans. We have heard about "Islamofascism" and "Islamobolshevism," both of which terms risk boxing our thinking into the past even as they give needless offense to Muslims by claiming that they are latter-day Nazis.

Since we are also engaged in a "war of hearts and minds," there has been much talk of a Cold War, running parallel to three wars - in Afghanistan, Iraq and against the "global jihadist insurgency." As an American commentator recently wrote in Foreign Affairs, if we take 9/11 as the equivalent of 1947, we are only six years into a struggle that may abate in 2043 if our descendants are fortunate.

Jonathan Evans, the director of MI5, claims that "culture" will play a significant role in this generation's conflicts with jihadists without spelling out what that means. These claims would be more credible if there was more money for public diplomacy, which in the US receives a significant percent of the vast defense budget. But the West need not be concerned how it represents itself, if that merely means dispatching the Boston Symphony Orchestra once more, to prove that there is more to us than MTV or Baywatch. If the problems are primarily in the Muslim world, then we need to be doing things like supporting an Arabic Booker Prize and gradually expanding a liberal artistic and media culture in the Arab world. A large cosmopolitan bourgeoisie constituency exists in Cairo; our task is to discreetly help organize them, perhaps along the lines of Freedom House's role in the "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine. For they will be one of the building blocks from which a more pluralistic greater Middle East will emerge.

During the Cold War, great enterprises like the Congress for Cultural Freedom confronted state propagandists in the eastern bloc. Now we have international media like al-Manar, as-Sahab, and al-Jazeera, plus 6,000 or so jihadist websites, along with chat rooms and social networks, often the real sites of auto-radicalization among young Muslims. Given the confusions in our own culture, how do we project a single view of Western society's values? What do we do about the growing number of people who inhabit a virtual world where, as in The X-Files, everything is a hidden conspiracy?

No significant section of Western elite opinion is sympathetic to the jihadists, as many were to Marxist-Leninism in the 1930s, but throughout Europe and even in the US there are left-liberals whose hatred of the US is so ingrained that they have become apologists for the most reactionary elements within Islam. Think of the activist human rights lawyers who are prepared to believe every crime ascribed to the US or UK governments and their collusive involvements with terrorists. British lawyer Madassur Arani has an entire West London practice dedicated to frustrating attempts by UK security services to recruit agents from within the British Muslim community. Her website gives step-by-step advice on how to resist recruitment.

There is also a larger penumbra of people who have migrated from the extreme Left to supporting parties that are halfway houses to the Islamists, e.g. George Galloway's Respect Party. In 2006 we had the spectacle of middle-class demonstrators bearing placards reading "We are all Hizbollah now," and more recently of the Archbishop of Canterbury seeking to make common cause with Muslim clerics by contemplating the licensing of enclaves of "soft" sharia law, a concession that would wholly undermine the Common Law of England while paving the way to "hard" sharia law in future.

Islam in Europe is a proselytizing religion which asserts its presence - most recently with demands for amplified muezzin in a predominantly non-Muslim suburb of Oxford or a 12,000 capacity mega-mosque to be situated next to London's 2012 Olympic complex. There are also quotidian acts of minority-within-a-minority self-assertion, ranging from schoolgirls insisting on wearing the hijab and jilbab to imams petitioning National Health Service hospitals insisting that patients' beds be turned to Mecca five times a day, to female Muslim NHS surgeons refusing to scrub their bare arms.

Throughout Europe, we are witnessing the gradual emergence of Muslim no-go areas, of enclaves based around nodal mosques and community centers, and public housing projects or rows of private terraced housing from which the indigenous population is decamping. Lax immigration policies, cheap flights and phone calls, and satellite TV mean that many immigrants do not make the mental break with "home." They simply transplant their home village to British cities.

So far, governments, notably in Britain and the Netherlands, have responded with state programs to inculcate local values through such things as formal citizenship tests. In these countries in particular, there has been a rapid abandonment of multiculturalism, but no commensurate attempt to uproot its massive bureaucratic expression in education, the media, and local government. Cultures of terrorism >>> By Michael Burleigh for FPRI | June 2, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Messerstecherei im Zürcher Rotlichtquartier
SONNTAGS BLICK: ZÜRICH – Im Zürcher Rotlichtquartier kommt es mitten in der Nacht zu einer Messerstecherei. Am Ende liegt ein Türke tot am Boden, ein Landsmann wird schwer verletzt.

Bei einer Messerstecherei im Zürcher Stadtkreis 4 ist in der Nacht eine Person getötet und eine weitere verletzt worden. Vier Männer wurden verhaftet, darunter der Verletzte.



Bei den Verhafteten handelt es sich um einen 29-jährigen Türken, zwei 46-jährige Schweizer sowie einen verletzten 26-jährigen Türken, wie die Stadtpolizei Zürich mitteilte. Das Opfer ist ein 27- jähriger Türke. Er verstarb noch am Tatort.



Kurz vor 1.45 Uhr kam es an der Zwinglistrasse zwischen mehreren Personen zu einer Auseinandersetzung. Im Verlauf des Streits wurde eine Stichwaffe eingesetzt. Über den genauen Tathergang sowie das Motiv liegen noch keine Erkenntnisse vor. (SDA) [Quelle: Messerstecherei im Kreis 4: Türke tot]

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Taschenbuch)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Gebundene Ausgabe)