Yesterday Swiss voters approved an initiative to amend the federal constitution so that foreign nationals who commit certain crimes in Switzerland are automatically deported, and forbidden to reenter the country within 5-20 years depending on the crime. The UDC, the party that sponsored the initiative, put up some pretty arresting posters (so to speak):
"Ivan S., rapist and soon Swiss? No to the counter-project [a milder alternative to the initiative]"
"Yes to the expulsion initiative"
Yes, that second one is a white sheep kicking a mean-looking black sheep off of its territory. I'm reasonably sure that this imagery would not fly in the US.
Here in Lausanne, where only 35.5% of the population voted in favor, this poster was defaced in eight different ways:
Stores around the city put up this one in reply:
"Sheep vote UDC"
and this one (which I don't really get):
"We are all foreign criminals"
The initiative still has to be turned into an amendment and approved by Parliament, so for now, I won't necessarily be sent home for committing armed robbery (woo!). The text of the initiative is fairly vague, which means that the offenses punished by automatic expulsion could be limited to the crimes it lists explicitly like rape, murder, human trafficking, and abuse of social benefits. Or it could be expanded to include more minor infractions. My Swiss roommate was teasing my French roommate that she'd be sent home for running a red light.
Amnesty International has been arguing that this change could could violate the Geneva Convention by having refugees sent back to countries where they face torture or death.
If you look at a map, the vote was basically a clean split between German-speakers (for) and French-speakers (against):
Source: Basler Zeitung
