Glarus open-air assembly to decide on burka ban

Citizens in canton Glarus are due to decide on Sunday whether to outlaw the wearing of a burka in public.

Participants at the traditional open-air assembly in Glarus will have the final say with a show of hands on a proposal launched by a member of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party in 2015.

If accepted, Glarus would become the second of 26 Swiss cantons to introduce a burka ban, following the example of Ticino, where voters approved a similar proposal in 2013.

The local People’s Party is the biggest of nine political groups in Glarus, a mountain canton southeast of Zurich, but both the Glarus cantonal government and parliament have recommended rejecting the proposal.

They argue it is better to wait and see whether efforts to introduce a nationwide burka ban will be successful.

Observers say approval of the ban in Glarus would boost the nationwide campaign to collect the necessary minimum of 100,000 signatures by next September for a vote on a burka ban across Switzerland.

The annual Glarus open-air assembly will also decide on a series of other issues, including the introduction of electronic voting at a cantonal level.