Jackie Rodriguez VZ WGeo/3rd 2/28/2014 Controversial Building of Mosques There are more than 6000 mosques in Europe which

are used as a place of worship by Muslims. Recently in Switzerland, a referendum was passed that banned the building of minarets on mosques. Minarets are towers built on the top of mosques and are used to call people to prayer. Some people even argue that the building of mosques should be banned altogether. An international director of the center for Islamic pluralism has said that they dont need so many mosques and that they have become a business and not a worship place. This leads me to believe that Muslims should be able to build these mosques, but maybe not so many. Switzerlands own constitution guarantees freedom of religion. With referendums like this recently, Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community. They are not able to exercise their freedom of religion if they cannot build the minarets on the mosques. A backlash from Muslims was felt as they protested against this ban. Deep opposition to their religion should not be a reason for taking away their freedom of religion. Europeans fear that the construction of mosques in their cities will lead to terrorism. They say it undermines their reputation for religious tolerance. Swiss feels that this will all lead to an erosion of the countrys values. They worry that Muslims do not accept Western values. They overall want to ban mosques altogether. Again, I feel that the Muslims have the right to build these mosques. As long as they agree to the laws and not build too many.