The president of the leftwing Social Democrat Party has added his voice to the religious debate in Switzerland, calling for a discussion about the status of Islam in the country. The party is the second one to moot the possibility of a new religion article in the Swiss constitution. “We should think about whether we want to recognize Islam as an official religion so that we don’t leave the training and financing of Imams to foreign and perhaps fundamental circles,” Christian Levrat told the SonntagsZeitung. “We must ask the question about whether there can be a Swiss Islam.” It is now up to the cantons to reflect on this, because the relation between state and religion comes under their remit, according to Switzerland’s federal system. “Perhaps in the end we will have this religion article,” said Levrat. At the end of July, Gerhard Pfister, the head of the centrist Christian Democratic Party, also mooted the possibility of a religion article in the constitution.
