The regional authority said teachers “had the right” to demand handshakes.
Advertisement
The Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga had said that allowing the boys not to shake a teacher’s hand was not her idea of integration.
The boys responded to the ruling in local media, saying “nobody could make them” shake hands, and that they can’t “just delete their culture as it was a hard drive”.
The decision comes after a national uproar arose over revelations last month that a middle school allowed two Syrian brothers, aged 14 and 15 not to shake their teachers’ hands after they complained that doing so was counter to their religious beliefs if the teacher was a woman.
The decision drew fierce backlash from around the country, where shaking hands with teachers is a deeply entrenched cultural practice.
Religious belief is no excuse for refusing to shake a teacher’s hand, Swiss regional authorities ruled on Wednesday, reversing one school’s controversial decision to grant exemptions for Muslim students wary of touching the opposite sex.
The Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) said Basel-Country had exceeded its authority by overturning the school’s decision and vowed a court battle.
“The public interest concerning gender equality as well as integration of foreigners is far greater than that concerning the freedom of belief of students”, authorities said. In November, the Swiss canton of Ticino said women wearing the burqa or niqab would be faced with a fine of up to $9,790, after the government made it illegal for them to wear the veils in public.
The younger of the two said in a newspaper interview that he had discovered the rule in an internet sermon.
Thus, if such an incident happens, the parents of a student who refuses to shake hands will have to pay a fine of up to 5,000 francs ($5,046), the legislation states. Authorities said they would investigate the circumstances under which the boys’ father, an imam at a mosque, arrived in Switzerland from Syria over a decade ago.
Muslims are thought to constitute about 5 percent of Switzerland’s population, but many Swiss argue that the community has not integrated fully.
Advertisement
Swiss schools have also had to deal with other similar issues, such as parents of muslim students refusing to let their daughters take swimming lessons, and objections to gym teachers correcting pupils’ posture during gym classes.
