Swiss Vote to Expel Foreign Criminals is 'Slap in the Face for EU'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...731852,00.html

'Despots and Dictators Get Welcomed'

	Quote:
	Austria's Die Presse wrote: "The growing anti-foreigner stance, which affects not only Africans and eastern Europeans but Germans or Austrians as well, exposes a certain schizophrenia: On the one hand foreign murderers, robbers and drug dealers are to be expelled from Switzerland. On the other hand despots, dictators, mafia members and businessmen whose money often comes from dubious sources, are welcomed with a 'Grüezi.'" Grüezi is a Swiss German greeting.

And that is exactly what I said some pages ago.

Sorry to spoil your joy but till I see this amended within the law with further articles protecting the rights of smaller infringements ie. Traffic tickets, I can only expect it's only serving SVP evil plans to reduce the population by deporting foreigners.

Even though, I still find this initiative, vote and results to be discriminative and xenophobic.

BTW, there's discussion within the EU committee to force penalties upto 50k chf per case for breaking human rights laws, so guess we are not only the individuals who are claiming it's offensive initiative.

I don't read French(not to a legal level atleast), however this link
http://www.initiative-pour-le-renvoi...ire/index.html
suggests that it is limited to serious crimes.

Is there something that I'm missing? If a foreign national commits a serious crime as listed in the law, they will be subjected to deportation.

You're not missing anything, it's just the fact SVP keeps pushing against different races and religions, they just started this initiative and won it, if at some point they want to manipulate facts as they usually do, they can say speeding can cause death which is equivalent to murder, therefore foreigners who get speeding tickets will be deported (which in theory is within the initiative clauses).

Such an initiative is an open door to discriminate whenever they like just by amending new crimes as they want.

Source BBC

I fully agree. So let's get back to the topic: Why did the Swiss vote for it? Because there are really so many criminal foreigners? Five pages or so back, last afternoon some argued that it was not about discrimination and not about "they are taking out jobs" but really because of the risinge crime rates. And that it is totally ok to be against criminal foreigners... My point is that the crime rates are not rising in Switzerland. There are only some "famous" cases that are continuously written on as there is not much else happening in Switzerland. Like the boys who beat the guy in Munich or the racers in Solothurn - each case terrible and absolutely worth to read about and discuss - but not for weeks.

20Minuten went to a village called "Pfyn" in Thurgau. This nest has the highest vote of all in Switzerland: 91,4%! They interviewed everyone from the major to the locals in the pub: There are no problems at all with the foreigners living there. "But you read so much about criminal foreigners" and "we live close to the border - many foreigners come here and take our jobs!". So at least the interviewed openly admit that they voted for the initiative without actually having a problem or in order to project their opinion of "foreigners in general" including jobs and immigration on this single topic. There are 200 foreigners living in the village. If I'd know that 9 out of ten people in my village have some "vague feeling against foreigners" - I would move.
http://www.20min.ch/news/ostschweiz/...ative-23975621

In Germany politicians keep on stressing that the reason for the representative democracy is that you can achieve better results by electing people that are knowledgeable in their domain instead of popular votes of badly informed masses. I fully disagreed specifically because I can see how well Switzerland is doing and that the very open democracy with all its downsides (as for example the really weird tax negotiations) is apparently not going bad.
One argument against direct democracy was always "that in the wrong moment - for example just after an especially bad murder case" the popular vote would be unbalanced and extreme forces could win majorities they normally would not get... and this seems to be true: A handful of cases and a well financed propaganda machine won this election.
The one thing I frankly do not like about the Swiss political system is the "Konkordanz" - the federal government is always set up to include all forces. The result is that each and every party is somehow involved in the government, but still can find plenty of scapegoats. In all other countries do you elect one party - say the SVP - see if they can live up to their promises. Chances are that they don't and in that case can they not blame anyone else anymore but lose the next election. So in my view is the danger of the Swiss system that it is great for populists: There are always easily many scapegoats to find and it is easy to hide the own responsibility...

Thanks for responding promptly.
While I see your concern for potential problems, I think we have to look at the current alternative.

If someone commits a serious crime, they will go to jail/prison. I don't think many have a concern that if they speed on the highway they will be tried and punished as a murderer, correct? Besides, the law and judicial system in Switzerland is one of the top in the world. We're not talking about a third-world puppet government that changes the laws whenever they want.
In several parts of the world, namely the US, criminals are often jailed at the expense of taxpayers. If someone murders another, they are incarcerated for a long time and become a burden upon society. I don't think it's wrong to say that if you commit a crime and are not a citizen, you should be sent back due to the lack of assimilation into the new country with regards to the laws of crime.

There! I found it! I know what will come next!

Some "second generation immigrant" lobby group reacted to the vote by recommending the immigrants that live here for more than 12 years to consider naturalization. They estimate that around 750000 people in Switzerland actually fulfill the requirements but did not do so up to now as the process is complicated and can be rejected in many places. All in all a knee jerk reaction article... but the best part: Read the last sentence with the SVP answer to the suggestion: "If suddenly many foreigners apply for naturalization, we will start an initiative to give the passport only probabtionary for newcomers. We have this lying in the drawer and can pull it out any time."
http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/...story/31043369

Point 1 & 2 make me suggest something, that most of the recent crimes which is happening in border cities have been committed by non residents who live in the border countries example

Point 3 sounds like the actual reason of voting, which is what i mentioned earlier in the thread

I totally agree, but if you read through the last 5 pages of the thread, you'll know my point which is there's much attitude towards foreigners in Switzerland at the moment, you can read the interview posted and my comments here What if? Consequences of expulsion initiative being accepted?

I believe that the government should have considered a survey not vote from foreigners too, to measure their reaction as they represent 22% of the population (1’714’004 in 2009).

Swiss Population publication November 2010: French - German

In that case I will raise the game with a 50 year old Swiss - a former convict for pedophilia - who was not stopped from working as a "Nachhilfe" teacher. He abused a 15 year old boy and then the boys dog(!). He got 3 years... I find this terribly low for a previously convicted repeated offender.
http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/politi...1.8428861.html
So why not take care of the important things first instead of scaring the foreign working class guys weather or not they can drive a bit too fast with the white van...

I agree. Often laws just need to be enforced properly and sentencing guidelines reviewed. There's no real practical, anti-crime benefit from discriminating against non-Swiss criminals . . . it's purely political.

Political and economical too What if? Consequences of expulsion initiative being accepted?

Welfare fraud is included in the proposal though. Is that worse than speeding? I know which causes more death and injury . . .

Yes exactly - that's my view too - but the people who have posted on this thread as being "pro" or at least "what's all the fuss about", have said that they believe the initiative to be about crime and about criminals not being wanted here. That's the sad part because they (and I imagine many people who voted for it) don't see it as a political anti-foreign move.

It clearly isn't about crime is it, because then it would be about longer sentencing for serious crimes, it would be about policing and about detecting and preventing crime. Instead of lying with statistics to convince people that it's actually the foreigners doing all this crime and we should therefore get rid of them and then we'll be OK.

I'm very glad to hear that the EU is upset by the vote - it should be.

[Edit to add: just to say I have to get back to work now, so can't take part in this discssion again for a few hours!]

Yep, that's law for you .

Well, yes, it is. Unless the speeding (most cases of which are not criminal acts) directly leads to death and injury.

I'm a voter. For me it clearly was about preventing crime. If we could kick out the Swiss who commit serious crimes as well, I'd be all for it. Unfortunately, Australia isn't too keen on taking our criminals anymore and many might find sending them to the Antartica is against human rights.

I agree about longer sentences for serious crimes.

I have faith that each criminal will be judged individually and no one will be expelled if they have no home country to go to.

Maybe it's not the actual kicking out that is fundamental here but the fear of being kicked out that may be be dissuading those foreigners who may be contemplating criminality as an easy road to getting rich quickly in a country that they may perceive as being soft.

So you folks really think you are qualified to judge on the behalf of the Swiss how they should perceive crime and how they should have voted on this initiative?