[Onthebarricades] SWITZERLAND: Antifa rule the streets in Bern

[Andy]

There have been thousands-strong militant anti-fascist protests in the Swiss 
capital Bern against the far-right SVP, which is doing well in elections on 
a viciously racist campaign featuring images of white sheep kicking out 
black sheep and foreigners as criminals.  As the SVP planned a pre-election 
rally in the capital, antifascists mobilised to disrupt the march.  Accounts 
suggest a remarkable victory for antifa, with the fascists diverted from 
their original route and police admitting they were unable to contain the 
revolt.  Protesters were in control of large areas of the capital.

What's rather strange is that the reports suggest Swiss are "unused" to such 
events - which occur annually in connection to the Davos summit and have 
happened when Nazis have tried to march previously.

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hhBc6bCFz0faB5T8X_lpTdw78tQQ

Extreme-left groups stage violent protest in Swiss capital Bern
1 day ago
BERN, Switzerland - Extreme-left groups staged a violent protest in the 
Swiss capital Saturday, damaging property and preventing a campaign rally by 
one of the country's largest parties from taking place.
According to police, hundreds of masked protesters attacked stalls and 
equipment set up in front of parliament for a pre-election event by the 
nationalist Swiss People's Party. Police said 18 officers and three 
protesters were injured.
Police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters and made 42 arrests.
The violence prevented 10,000 supporters of the People's Party from marching 
through Bern to a square in front of parliament to hear leading party 
members speak, including Justice Minister Christoph Blocher and Defence 
Minister Samuel Schmid.
Left-wing groups had called for protests against the rally - held two weeks 
before the country's Oct. 21 parliamentary elections.
A separate "Festival against Racism" attended by up to 3,000 people in Bern 
passed peacefully.
The People's Party condemned the violence as contrary to Switzerland's 
democratic tradition.
The party has been criticized in recent months for its hardline stance on 
immigration, illustrated by campaign posters showing white sheep kicking a 
black sheep off a Swiss flag.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2185760,00.html

Switzerland reeling as radicals create havoc at rightwing political rally


· Rioters hurl petrol bombs and torch cars in capital
· Fear that riot will increase support for the far right

Ian Traynor in Berne
Monday October 8, 2007
The Guardian
The Swiss capital of Berne was turned into a battle zone at the weekend when 
leftwing radicals seized control of the main square outside parliament, 
routing the main far-right political party two weeks before a general 
election and catching the Swiss police off guard.
Dozens of protesters were arrested and around two dozen people injured, 
mostly police officers, as police deployed tear gas, water cannon, and 
rubber bullets to try to regain control from gangs of highly organised, 
masked people who turned the small and normally sleepy capital of 
Switzerland into a scene of devastation.

The clashes on Saturday and the revulsion triggered among mainstream Swiss 
by the unusual street violence are likely to play into the hands of 
Christoph Blocher, the tough-talking populist and millionaire industrialist 
who leads the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the far-right movement tipped to 
win the elections later this month following a campaign denounced as overtly 
racist by a United Nations watchdog.
Mr Blocher called a campaign rally of his party in the capital and some 
10,000 of his supporters converged on Berne to march to the capital's main 
square in front of parliament.
But the planned rally was hijacked by up to 1,000 masked street fighters who 
blocked the SVP's progress, outwitted the police by operating in small 
groups moving in and out of the crowds, and ransacked the SVP stage and 
campaign equipment.
The Federal Square, site of a charming Saturday morning flower and vegetable 
market, resembled a war zone by Saturday night, littered with debris, 
masonry, shattered glass and torched metal.
The city mayor admitted "impotence" in the face of the riots. The trouble 
raised questions about the readiness of the Swiss authorities to cope with 
potential hooliganism at next summer's Euro 2008 football championship being 
hosted jointly by Austria and Switzerland.
Mr Blocher's SVP is expected to emerge as the strongest party with more than 
a quarter of the vote in the elections in two weeks due to a blunt 
anti-immigrant campaign, broadsides against the European Union, and a robust 
affirmation of traditional Swiss isolationism. The party's main election 
poster bears the slogan: My Home, Our Switzerland, Keep It Secure. It shows 
three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the red-and-white Swiss flag. 
The UN's xenophobia watchdog, based in Switzerland, described the explicit 
anti-immigrant message as openly racist.
The foreign minister and current Swiss president, Micheline Calmy-Rey, a 
social democrat, has complained that the SVP campaign is giving Switzerland 
a bad name and partially blamed it for the weekend violence. "One should not 
play with fear just to win a few votes," she said. "The current provocations 
and attacks in politics leave their mark."
But the confrontation in a country not used to political violence could 
boost Mr Blocher's support and entrench his pugnacious nationalist 
conservatism as the leading force in Switzerland. The SVP is collecting 
signatures demanding a referendum on the deportation of "criminal 
foreigners."
"Foreigners are shamelessly abusing Swiss hospitality. This has to be 
stopped," the SVP manifesto argues. The success of the SVP campaign is being 
studied by neo-Nazi groups in Germany.
Markus Meier, a reader, commenting in the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 
wrote: "How can pseudo-political activists organise a riot-party in a Swiss 
town, cause thousands of francs worth of damage and leave the taxpayer to 
pick up the bill."
Mr Blocher criticised the police for being unable to ensure safety for an 
authorised political meeting after his rally was forced to retreat. "It's 
obvious that the biggest party in Switzerland can no longer go to the 
federal square," Mr Blocher told his supporters to huge applause.
Police officers admitted they had been outwitted by the guerrilla tactics of 
the rioters who set fires, lifted paving stones, torched vehicles, hurled 
stones and petrol bombs, and laid waste to the jewellers' stores and posh 
watch dealers of the capital. The Berne police chief, Stephan Huegli, 
described the events as a black day for Swiss democracy and freedom of 
speech.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/07/europe/EU-GEN-Switzerland-Violent-Protest.php

Swiss president calls for calm after pre-election violence in capital

The Associated Press
Published: October 7, 2007

BERN, Switzerland: The Swiss president on Sunday condemned the violence that 
erupted a day earlier when extreme-left groups halted a nationalist party's 
election rally.
Up to 500 masked protesters blocked a 10,000-strong march through Bern by 
People's Party supporters hoping to hear party figures speak two weeks 
before national elections.
The protesters also destroyed campaign stalls and equipment set up for the 
rally outside Parliament.
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters, who 
they said used "guerrilla tactics" to disrupt the event. Eighteen officers 
and three protesters were injured, and 42 people were arrested, police said.
"I'm saddened by the images of violence," Swiss President Micheline 
Calmy-Rey said in an interview with weekly Sonntags Blick, adding that 
extremists must not be allowed to prevent people from exercising their right 
to free speech.
The People's Party has been criticized in recent months for its hard-line 
stance on immigration.
Police said about 100 neo-Nazis had joined the People's Party march, which 
had to be diverted to another location on the outskirts of Bern - 
Switzerland's medieval capital.
"A few hundred extremists can't endanger our democracy," Calmy-Rey said in 
the interview, appealing to all sides to stop playing on voters' fears in 
order to gain political advantage for the Oct. 21 polls.
The violence raised concerns about the increasingly harsh tone of political 
debates in the normally peaceful Alpine republic.
Opponents of the People's Party have accused it and leading members such as 
Christoph Blocher - who holds the portfolio of justice minister in the 
seven-seat government - of deliberately stoking tensions with provocative 
statements and policies.
The party recently launched a campaign to deport criminal foreigners, 
illustrating its point with posters showing white sheep kicking a black 
sheep off a Swiss flag.
Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin, a member of the center-right Radical 
Democrats, said he warned his colleague Blocher about the risk of violence 
at Saturday's rally, as left-wing groups had called for demonstrations 
against the event.
Recent surveys have suggested the People's Party would get 26 percent of the 
vote, putting it four points ahead of its closest rival, Calmy-Rey's Social 
Democrats.
A separate "Festival against Racism" in Bern on Saturday was attended by up 
to 3,000 people and was peaceful.

http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=446854&lng=1

Swiss police and protestors battle at Berne rally
A clean-up operation is underway in the Swiss capital, Berne, after clashes 
between police and anti right-wing protestors. It is the latest sign of 
growing tensions ahead of an unusually divisive election this month. 
Violence is said to have erupted when hundreds of demonstrators tried to 
break-up a march organised by the right-wing People's Party.

Support for the right-wing party has soared under the leadership of 
industrialist Christoph Blocher, who has appealed to conservative Swiss 
voters with his anti-European Union, isolationist stance. His party, which 
has campaigned against minarets in Swiss cities and plastered billboards and 
roadsides with posters calling for "black sheep" foreigners to be kicked 
out, is poised to be the largest winner in elections set for October 21.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7032021.stm

Violence at Swiss pre-poll rally

The nationalist party is tipped to win the elections later this month
Violence flared in the Swiss capital of Bern as left-wing protesters tried 
to stop a pre-election campaign event by the nationalist Swiss People's 
Party.
Police fired tear gas as demonstrators hurled rocks and bottles in front of 
parliament to interrupt a march and rally by about 5,000 SVP supporters.
The SVP has been criticised recently for its hard-line views on immigration.
Its campaign posters - showing white sheep kicking a black sheep off a Swiss 
flag - have stirred controversy.
The party, which has campaigned against minarets in Swiss cities, condemned 
the violence as contrary to the country's democratic tradition.
The disorder comes two weeks before the country's 21 October parliamentary 
elections.
Recent polls have forecast the SVP to emerge as the largest vote-winner.

http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=446834&lng=1

Clashes in Switzerland at political rally
There have been clashes in Switzerland between police and leftist activists 
who were protesting against an election rally by the right wing Swiss 
People's Party. Police moved in to clear demonstrators after they blocked 
the square outside the parliament in Berne where the rally was to be held.

With two weeks to the election, the Swiss People's Party is leading the 
polls by around four percent. Leader Christoph Blocher lashed out at the 
protestors as aggressors who could not tolerate the views of others. His 
party's campaign has featured a poster portraying foreigners as black sheep 
being kicked out of the country by white sheep.

They have also campaigned against Islamic minarets in Swiss cities. The 
violence in Berne indicates how unusually divisive this election has been. 
Blocher's party won the largest share of the vote in 2003 and appears on 
course to repeat that success. The Socialists are trailing second, with the 
centre-right liberals third.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/10/08/swiss_capital_plagued_by_weekend_riots/5532/

Swiss capital plagued by weekend riots

Published: 8, 2007 at 12:48 PM
BERNE, Switzerland, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Officials in the Swiss capital, Berne, 
hoped for calm Monday after left-wing radicals seized The Federal Square 
outside parliament over the weekend.

Nearly 1,000 masked protesters moved against a campaign rally put on by the 
right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP), looting the stage and inciting riots.

Riot police used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets in an attempt to 
regain control over the capital square, the Guardian reported.

More than two dozen people were injured during the riots and police arrested 
nearly a dozen protesters.

The riots were part of a debate over Swiss nationalism and mounting concerns 
over immigration.

SVP members displayed election posters showing three white sheep kicking a 
black sheep off the Swiss Flag over the slogan "My Home, Our Switzerland, 
Keep it Secure."

The message manifests concern that Switzerland is becoming a safe haven for 
political refugees from troubled regions such as Serbia and Rwanda. The SVP 
claims the majority of the prison population are foreign nationals.

The SVP garnered nearly 27 percent of the vote 2003 election as voters 
rallied around its populist message, The New York Times said.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/237755/18_injured_42_held_in_Swiss_political_protest

18 injured, 42 held in Swiss political protest
Posted Oct 6, 2007
Eighteen people were injured and 42 detained in Berne Saturday when police 
clashed with left-wing demonstrators protesting at a rally of the 
nationalist Swiss People's Party (SVP).

The party had called on thousands of its supporters to take part in a 
pre-election rally at the main square before the capital's parliament 
building.

Demonstrators disrupted the event, prompting the rally organisers to seek 
police protection. Police then moved in using teargas. The violence spilled 
over and nearby streets saw shops and cars damaged.

The SVP - which has campaign posters showing white sheep kicking a black 
sheep off a Swiss flag - has been recently criticised for its hard-line 
views on immigration. The party has also campaigned against minarets in 
Swiss cities.

The clashes came two weeks before 21 October parliamentary elections which 
recent polls have forecast the SVP winning most votes. dpa hpd sc

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/world/europe/08swiss.html?hp

Immigration, Black Sheep and Swiss Rage


By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: October 8, 2007
SCHWERZENBACH, Switzerland, Oct. 4 - The posters taped on the walls at a 
political rally here capture the rawness of Switzerland's national electoral 
campaign: three white sheep stand on the Swiss flag as one of them kicks a 
single black sheep away.
Pascal Lauener/Reuters
A protest against backers of the rightist Swiss People's Party ended in 
clashes and tear gas.
Christoph Blocher, the justice minister and the driving force in the 
rightist Swiss People's Party's, addressing a crowd in Bern.
"To Create Security," the poster reads.
The poster is not the creation of a fringe movement, but of the most 
powerful party in Switzerland's federal Parliament and a member of the 
coalition government, an extreme right-wing party called the Swiss People's 
Party, or SVP. It has been distributed in a mass mailing to Swiss 
households, reproduced in newspapers and magazines and hung as huge 
billboards across the country.
As voters prepare to go to the polls in a general election on Oct. 21, the 
poster - and the party's underlying message - have polarized a country that 
prides itself on peaceful consensus in politics, neutrality in foreign 
policy and tolerance in human relations.
Suddenly the campaign has turned into a nationwide debate over the place of 
immigrants in one of the world's oldest democracies, and over what it means 
to be Swiss.
"The poster is disgusting, unacceptable," Micheline Calmy-Rey, the current 
president of Switzerland under a one-year rotation system, said in an 
interview. "It stigmatizes others and plays on the fear factor, and in that 
sense it's dangerous. The campaign does not correspond to Switzerland's 
multicultural openness to the world. And I am asking all Swiss who do not 
agree with its message to have the courage to speak out."
Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin, of the Liberal Democratic Party, has 
even suggested that the SVP's worship of Christoph Blocher, the billionaire 
who is the party's driving force and the current justice minister, is 
reminiscent of that of Italian fascists for Mussolini.
[On Saturday, a march of several thousand SVP supporters in Bern ended in 
clashes between hundreds of rock-throwing counterdemonstrators and riot 
police officers, who used tear gas to disperse them. The opponents of the 
rally, organized by a new group called the Black Sheep Committee, had tried 
to prevent the demonstrators from marching to Parliament.]
The message of the party resonates loudly among voters who have seen this 
country of 7.5 million become a haven for foreigners, including political 
refugees from places like Kosovo and Rwanda. Polls indicate that the 
right-wing party is poised to win more seats than any other party in 
Parliament in the election, as it did in national elections in 2003, when 
its populist language gave it nearly 27 percent of the vote.
"Our political enemies think the poster is racist, but it just gives a 
simple message," Bruno Walliser, a local chimney sweep running for 
Parliament on the party ticket, said at the rally, held on a Schwerzenbach 
farm outside Zurich. "The black sheep is not any black sheep that doesn't 
fit into the family. It's the foreign criminal who doesn't belong here, the 
one that doesn't obey Swiss law. We don't want him."
More than 20 percent of Swiss inhabitants are foreign nationals, and the SVP 
argues that a disproportionate number are lawbreakers. Many drug dealers are 
foreign, and according to federal statistics, about 70 percent of the prison 
population is non-Swiss.
As part of its platform, the SVP party has begun a campaign seeking the 
100,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum to let judges deport 
foreigners after they serve prison sentences for serious crimes. The measure 
also calls for the deportation of the entire family if the convicted 
criminal is a minor.
Human rights advocates warn that the initiative is reminiscent of the Nazi 
practice of Sippenhaft, or kin liability, under which relatives of criminals 
were held responsible and punished for their crimes.
The party's political campaign has a much broader agenda than simply 
fighting crime. Its subliminal message is that the influx of foreigners has 
somehow polluted Swiss society, straining the social welfare system and 
threatening the very identity of the country.
Unlike the situation in France, where the far-right National Front leader 
Jean-Marie Le Pen campaigned for president in the spring alongside black and 
ethnic Arab supporters, the SVP has taken a much cruder us-against-them 
approach.
In a short three-part campaign film, "Heaven or Hell," the party's message 
is clear. In the first segment, young men inject heroin, steal handbags from 
women, kick and beat up schoolboys, wield knives and carry off a young 
woman. The second segment shows Muslims living in Switzerland - women in 
head scarves; men sitting, not working.
The third segment shows "heavenly" Switzerland: men in suits rushing to 
work, logos of Switzerland's multinational corporations, harvesting on 
farms, experiments in laboratories, scenes of lakes, mountains, churches and 
goats. "The choice is clear: my home, our security," the film states.
The film was withdrawn from the party's Web site after the men who acted in 
it sued, arguing they were unaware of its purpose. But over beer and 
bratwurst at the Schwerzenbach political rally, Mr. Walliser screened it for 
the audience, saying, "I'm taking the liberty to show it anyway."
For Nelly Schneider, a 49-year-old secretary, the party's approach is "a 
little bit crass," but appealing nevertheless. "These foreigners abuse the 
system," she said after Mr. Walliser's presentation. "They don't speak any 
German. They go to prostitution and do drugs and drive fancy cars and work 
on the black market. They don't want to work."
As most of the rest of Europe has moved toward unity, Switzerland has 
fiercely guarded its independence, staying out of the 27-country European 
Union and maintaining its status as a tax haven for the wealthy. It has 
perhaps the longest and most arduous process to become a citizen in all of 
Europe: candidates typically must wait 12 years before being considered.
Three years ago the SVP blocked a move to liberalize the citizenship 
process, using the image of dark-skinned hands snatching at Swiss passports. 
And though the specter of terrorism has not been a driving issue, some 
posters in southern Switzerland at the time showed a mock Swiss passport 
held by Osama bin Laden.
Foreigners, who make up a quarter of the Swiss work force, complain that it 
is harder to get a job or rent an apartment without a Swiss passport and 
that they endure everyday harassment that Swiss citizens do not.
James Philippe, a 28-year-old Haitian who has lived in Switzerland for 14 
years and works for Streetchurch, a Protestant storefront community 
organization, and as a hip-hop dance instructor, said he is regularly 
stopped by the police and required to show his papers and submit to body 
searches. He speaks German, French, Creole and English, but has yet to 
receive a Swiss passport.
"The police treat me like I'm somehow not human," he said at the 
Streetchurch headquarters in a working-class neighborhood of Zurich. "Then I 
open my mouth and speak good Swiss German, and they're always shocked.
"We come here. We want to learn. We clean their streets and do all the work 
they don't want to do. If they kick us out, are they going to do all that 
work themselves? We need them, but they need us too."
SVP officials insist that their campaign is not racist, just anticrime. 
"Every statistic shows that the participation of foreigners in crime is 
quite high," said Ulrich Schlüer, an SVP Parliament deputy who has also led 
an initiative to ban minarets in Switzerland. "We cannot accept this. We are 
the only party that addresses this problem."
But the SVP campaign has begun to have a ripple effect, shaking the image of 
Switzerland as a place of prosperity, tranquillity and stability - 
particularly for doing business. On Thursday, a coalition of business, union 
and church leaders in Basel criticized the SVP for what they called its 
extremism, saying, "Those who discriminate against foreigners hurt the 
economy and threaten jobs in Switzerland."
"In the past," said Daniele Jenni, a lawyer and the founder of the Black 
Sheep Committee who is running for Parliament, "people were reluctant to 
attack the party out of fear that it might only strengthen it. Now people 
are beginning to feel liberated. They no longer automatically accept the 
role of the rabbit doing nothing, just waiting for the snake to bite."