A campaign to ban the Islamic headscarf from all public schools has resurfaced in Switzerland, pushing a local controversy onto the national stage. On Monday a right-leaning group linked to the Swiss People’s Party (UDC/SVP) submitted a petition in Bern bearing 12,000 signatures, reported RTS.
The petition follows a heated debate that began last summer in the German-speaking part of the country. The row started in Eschenbach, a town of about 10,000 people in the canton of St Gallen. A Muslim woman seeking to teach at a local primary school was denied a post because she wore a headscarf, after protests from residents demanding religiously neutral education. The dispute quickly became politicised. Cantonal parliaments in St Gallen and Aargau are now debating headscarf bans, and the issue has resurfaced in Zurich as well.
The petition, launched by the so-called Egerkingen committee, seeks to prohibit Islamic headscarves in all public educational institutions, from kindergarten to university, applying to both pupils and teachers. Head coverings associated with other faiths, such as Jewish skullcaps, would not be affected.
Walter Wobmann, the committee’s president and a former UDC/SVP lawmaker, argues that the measure is necessary to prevent religious indoctrination. He claims that the headscarf represents values at odds with Switzerland’s democratic traditions and warns against what he calls the incremental spread of political Islam. The proposal also targets religious accommodation more broadly, opposing changes to exam schedules during Ramadan or leave for Muslim holidays. Wobmann says the aim is to limit Islam’s footprint in schools, stressing Switzerland’s Christian heritage and rejecting what he describes as special rules for Muslims.
Critics see the arguments as fear-driven. Mallory Schneuwly Purdie, a sociologist at the Swiss Centre for Islam and Society, notes that while the number of Muslims is rising in absolute terms, their share of the population is broadly stable. Claims of demographic displacement, she says, are unfounded.
The federal government must now formally acknowledge the petition, but is unlikely to act on it. It has recently rejected the idea of banning the headscarf for pupils, favouring a liberal approach that leaves the decision to those concerned.
Yet the committee’s track record gives the campaign political weight. It was behind successful votes banning minarets and face coverings. It is now considering launching a popular initiative on the veil in schools—a move that could force a nationwide referendum. Purdie warns that such a ballot could succeed by uniting disparate groups, from anti-immigration voters to secularists and some advocates of women’s rights, around a single, contentious symbol.
The Egerkingen committee’s latest campaign may find support beyond its usual strongholds. In Geneva, debates over religious dress periodically return to the political agenda. The canton’s constitution enshrines the principle of laïcité, which formally separates church and state and requires religious neutrality from public authorities. In practice, this means that state institutions—and their representatives when acting in an official capacity—are barred from displaying overt religious symbols.
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