Switzerland, you've done it again.

[Chinaski]

I don't know whether to be ashamed or proud.

Swiss Right Wins Vote on Deportation of Criminals


GENEVA — After heated debate and a campaign utilizing controversial “black sheep” posters, Switzerland’s far-right party won voters’ support in a referendum Sunday that calls for the automatic deportation of foreigners who are convicted of serious crimes.

Voters also rejected an initiative to set a minimum national tax rate for the wealthy that opponents asserted would have dimmed Switzerland’s allure as a tax oasis for rich foreigners and would have prompted an exodus by many wealthy Swiss and foreigners alike.

Final results of the poll showed that 52.9 percent of voters and a majority of Switzerland’s cantons supported the rightist Swiss People’s Party initiative calling for the expulsion of foreigners convicted of crimes ranging from murder and rape to drug dealing and social security fraud.

Legal experts have warned that automatic deportation could violate a 1999 agreement between Switzerland and the European Union that provides for freedom of movement in the Continent. The government also expressed concern that the measure would breach Switzerland’s obligation not to return people to countries that practice torture.

But those arguments evidently made little impression on voters uneasy over a large immigrant population.

A counter-proposal by the government and center-right parties opposed to the People’s Party initiative that was also put to the vote in the referendum failed to garner a majority in any of the cantons and won support from only 46 percent of voters. The counter-proposal also would have toughened provisions for deporting foreigners, but it would have allowed a judge to review each case.

Initial analysis of the results, however, suggested that many supporters of center-right parties voted for the People’s Party initiative, said Lukas Golder of the political and social research institute Gfs.Bern.

What resonated with voters were contentions that foreigners accounted for a disproportionate share of Swiss crime. Christian Blocher, the People’s Party leader, asserted at a debate at Geneva University during the campaign that foreigners make up 22 percent of the resident population but account for 54 percent of convictions for grievous bodily harm and 62 percent of robbery convictions. “Prisons do not stop crimes,” he said. “The only way to go about it is to force them to leave the country.

Last year the People’s Party backed a ban on building minarets alongside mosques, stirring outrage among Muslims and others around the world.

And in the campaign for the referendum on Sunday the party resurrected its controversial posters for a 2007 election that depicted a white sheep kicking a black sheep off a flag of Switzerland. The United Nations and human rights groups condemned the posters as racist.

The People’s Party has prospered by taking a tough line on immigration and law and order.

It emerged from the 2007 election as Switzerland’s largest political party, with 29 percent of the popular vote. It appears to have used the campaign for the Sunday referendum to bolster its appeal and to test its organization and resources ahead of a general election due next year, said Mr. Golder of Gfs.Bern.

The proposal, meanwhile, by the leftist Social Democrat party to introduce a minimum tax across all Switzerland’s cantons was rejected by 58 percent of voters. Early enthusiasm for the initiative faded in the face of arguments by business organizations and threats to leave the country issued by some of Switzerland’s prominent rich.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world ... swiss.html

[Sælir]

I have to admit that I wish we would deport criminals in Iceland. Our prisons are filled with foreign prisoners (seriously they are full and people have to wait a very long time to be able to serve their sentances) who have likened it to being on vacation being in an Icelandic prison.
I really don´t see why I have to pay for foreigners on vacation in prison in Iceland!

[Eriku]

Sell your sash, I'm sure you can afford it if you laid off the excessively embroidered get-up.

[redunderthebed]

That is all i can say. I love how these morons think that they being foreigners make fuck all difference.

Unless you speak french german or italian or speak some weird hillbilly language work in a bank and are pasty white you can fuck off according to these morons it seems.

Morons=Swiss Peoples Party heh forget to clarify.

[Sælir]

Sell your sash, I'm sure you can afford it if you laid off the excessively embroidered get-up.

I can assure you that if this sash was mine to sell I would use the money for something other than paying for criminals having a good time in Icelandic prisons

[redunderthebed]

Sell your sash, I'm sure you can afford it if you laid off the excessively embroidered get-up.

I can assure you that if this sash was mine to sell I would use the money for something other than paying for criminals having a good time in Icelandic prisons

I doubt any prisons are holiday camps even if the rules are lax, being held in one place against your will is rather shit.I would imagine and far from a holiday a holiday you choose to go to.

[Sælir]

Sell your sash, I'm sure you can afford it if you laid off the excessively embroidered get-up.

I can assure you that if this sash was mine to sell I would use the money for something other than paying for criminals having a good time in Icelandic prisons

I doubt any prisons are holiday camps even if the rules are lax, being held in one place against your will is rather shit.I would imagine and far from a holiday a holiday you choose to go to.

Well, you are being held in one place because you broke the law! You are not put to prison here because you farted! I really don´t feel sorry for them for being in prison when they have nobody to blame but themselves.
And yes, I am serious when I tell you that foreign criminals have on more than one occasion described being in prison in Iceland like being on vacation!

[Azathoth]

Sell your sash, I'm sure you can afford it if you laid off the excessively embroidered get-up.

I can assure you that if this sash was mine to sell I would use the money for something other than paying for criminals having a good time in Icelandic prisons

I doubt any prisons are holiday camps even if the rules are lax, being held in one place against your will is rather shit.I would imagine and far from a holiday a holiday you choose to go to.

No rent, free food. You can take your computer with you and leave to go to work. Cheap drugs on tap. It is OK in there

[redunderthebed]

Sell your sash, I'm sure you can afford it if you laid off the excessively embroidered get-up.

I can assure you that if this sash was mine to sell I would use the money for something other than paying for criminals having a good time in Icelandic prisons

I doubt any prisons are holiday camps even if the rules are lax, being held in one place against your will is rather shit.I would imagine and far from a holiday a holiday you choose to go to.

Well, you are being held in one place because you broke the law! You are not put to prison here because you farted! I really don´t feel sorry for them for being in prison when they have nobody to blame but themselves.
And yes, I am serious when I tell you that foreign criminals have on more than one occasion described being in prison in Iceland like being on vacation!

I don't disagree i was just stating the facts.

Some of the places they had come from i'd imagine. A western-style competently run prison WOULD be a holiday compared to the shitholes they pass off as prisons back home.

Deporting people that don't fit in a stereotype of what those countries people are meant to be, make no doubt thats what this is is fucking retarded and throughly racist. Hell the fucking UN called these idiots and they don't do terribly often unless you have seriously crossed the line.

Don't be ashamed chinaski just get your arse down to the swiss embassy election time and vote against that's one good thing about democracy.

[Sælir]

Some of the places they had come from i'd imagine. A western-style competently run prison WOULD be a holiday compared to the shitholes they pass off as prisons back home.

Deporting people that don't fit in a stereotype of what those countries people are meant to be, make no doubt thats what this is is fucking retarded and throughly racist. Hell the fucking UN called these idiots and they don't do terribly often unless you have seriously crossed the line.

So because their prisons are so bad they can just come to another country, commit crimes and let foreigners (the people living in that country) pay for their refinement??
That may be "seriously retarded and thorougly racist" but it doesn´t change the fact that I don´t want to pay for it!
Maybe they would think again before committing crimes if they knew they wouldn´t be serving them here but in their own countries...

And on a sidenote... are criminals a race?? Can you be racist against criminals?

[Eriku]

Some of the places they had come from i'd imagine. A western-style competently run prison WOULD be a holiday compared to the shitholes they pass off as prisons back home.

Deporting people that don't fit in a stereotype of what those countries people are meant to be, make no doubt thats what this is is fucking retarded and throughly racist. Hell the fucking UN called these idiots and they don't do terribly often unless you have seriously crossed the line.

So because their prisons are so bad they can just come to another country, commit crimes and let foreigners (the people living in that country) pay for their refinement??
That may be "seriously retarded and thorougly racist" but it doesn´t change the fact that I don´t want to pay for it!
Maybe they would think again before committing crimes if they knew they wouldn´t be serving them here but in their own countries...

And on a sidenote... are criminals a race?? Can you be racist against criminals?

Noggy and Swedish prisons have also been likened to havens... which is why gangs of Eastern-European professional thieves will have a go at a heist here... or at least not a good reason for them not to do it ;P

On your sidenote, I reckon that's not a valid question ;P it's not as if what you're saying is aimed at all criminals in Iceland... nor could you level that one, unless you thought it plausible to have some sort of prisoner exchange program ;P

[Trolldor]

Hold on, does this mean convicted of committing crimes in Switzerland or anywhere?

If they commit serious crimes in Switzerland I have no problem with them being deported if they're foreign nationals.

If it simply refers to having a conviction on record then that's absurd.

[Sælir]

Hold on, does this mean convicted of committing crimes in Switzerland or anywhere?

If they commit serious crimes in Switzerland I have no problem with them being deported if they're foreign nationals.

If it simply refers to having a conviction on record then that's absurd.

From this sentence:

foreigners make up 22 percent of the resident population but account for 54 percent of convictions for grievous bodily harm and 62 percent of robbery convictions. “Prisons do not stop crimes,” he said. “The only way to go about it is to force them to leave the country.

I understand it so that they are talking about foreigners committing crimes in Switzerland. If they only had a criminal record they wouldn´t be in prisons in Switzerland.

[Trolldor]

In that case, what are the objections? Deporting foreign nationals who are convicted of serious offences. Plenty of countries already do that.

[Chinaski]

My main problem is the fact that it's completely indiscriminate and not subject to judicial review. A second generation 20 year old, who has lived his entire life in Switzerland, never been to his parent's country, has made friends, gone to school, become part of the Swiss fabric, can be sent off to a Balkan or Middle-Eastern shithole for selling someone a dimebag. Had they adopted the government's counter proposal, which required case-by-case jury reviews for each case, and had a much more serious list of crimes that would make you liable for deportation. Otherwise, I can't really argue it. Switzerland has a very lenient prison system, the maximum sentence you can get for anything is 15 years, and prisons are outfitted with gyms, media entertainment systems, and whatnot. 70% of the prison population is made up of non-Swiss citizens, as opposed to the 20% of the entire Swiss population. Surely there's an unnecessarily costly imbalance.