Via mefi; a popular initiative in Switzerland has banned the building of minarets. This is at the federal level and cannot be judicially reviewed. Previously there has been attempts to put through popular initiatives against minarets at the canton level (state level in USian/Auian terms) but these have failed. Canton popular initiatives can be judicially reviewed. Interestingly, the Swiss Government and Assembly opposed the initiative.

This is definitely an illiberal action and shows the worst aspects of mob democracy where a majority will happily vote away the rights of minorities. We have seen this in the United States with gay marriage where it was granted by the legislature in California and soon after removed by popular initiative. Fareed Zakaria has argued in the past that too much direct democracy has led to bad governance in California, though I cannot recall if he also argued that direct democracy led to illiberal governance as well.

Judging by the article on wiki the minaret that inspired the initiative and ban is pretty lame and hardly worth the fears or efforts that it provoked. It seems the neighbors tried to control it through building codes and complaints at the local level. So it seems a popular initiative to ban all minarets was not necessary anyway, especially as there are only four minarets in total in Switzerland anyway.

It appears that this initiative was more a proxy for fear of the muslim religion being open visual in the local communities and the Swiss nation. It appears to be more about phobias than building code issues. From the article:

"Forced marriages and other things like cemeteries separating the pure and impure - we don't have that in Switzerland and we don't want to introduce it," said Ulrich Schluer, co-president of the Initiative Committee to ban minarets.

That seems more like scare tactics than anything else and if the goal is to remove muslim worship from Switzerland then banning minarets is not going to achieve it. Place me on the side of those concerned that the right to religion and prayer as fundamental rights and if places of worship can meet building codes and pass local committees then there should be no problem with it. I think this initiative will be seen as more and more illiberal as time goes on.