The famously "neutral" country of Switzerland—long praised for its tolerance and forward-thinking nature—has roughly 150 mosques nationwide, with only four minarets among them across the whole country. There are about four hundred thousand Muslims in all of Switzerland—most of them from Kosovo and Turkey—among a total population of about 7.5 million people. Nonetheless, the Swiss government would have you think that Muslims are trying to build mosque minarets on every peak of the Swiss Alps! In 2009, a national referendum put forth by the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) proposed legislation to ban mosque minarets across the country. It passed with 57.5 percent of the vote. It also put Switzerland in breach of international conventions on human rights and religious freedom.

XREF: A vivid example of manufactured moral panic disproportionate to actual circumstances — resonates with other cases where rhetorical fear outstrips material reality.

XREF: Connects to broader patterns of nativist referenda and moral panics in Western democracies adjusting to Muslim-minority populations.

Arsalan Iftikhar, Fear of a Muslim Planet_ Gl…, loc. 554