Muslim girls denied Swiss citizenship for refusing to swim with boys

It was the latest move to bar citizenship to anyone who balks at Swiss culture

Swiss authorities rejected the naturalisation application of two Muslim girls who refused to take school swimming lessons with boys.

According to Swiss media, the girls aged 12 and 14, living in the Swiss city of Basel had applied for Swiss citizenship several months ago, but their request was denied.

The girls cited religious reasons for not participating in compulsory swimming lessons at their school with males in the pool at the same time.



Basel authorities reported that their application for naturalisation was rejected because the sisters did not comply with the school curriculum.

“Whoever doesn’t fulfill these conditions violates the law and therefore cannot be naturalized,” Stefan Wehrle, president of the naturalisation committee, told TV station SRF on Tuesday.

The case shows how those who don’t follow Swiss rules and customs will not be able to get Swiss citizenship, even if they have lived in the country for a long time, are fluent in one of the national languages — German, French or Italian — and are gainfully employed.

The Alpine country has proved to be strict in its laws of integration.

On Wednesday, a Muslim father from Geneva was fined for refusing to allow his daughters to take swimming lessons at school.

In 2012, a family was fined $1,500 for forbidding their daughters to participate in swimming classes. The matter eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, which ruled that no dispensations from swimming lessons should be made on religious grounds.



In April, members of an immigrant family in the Basel area were denied citizenship because they wore sweatpants around town and did not greet a passersby, which according to the naturalisation board proved to be a sure sign that they were not sufficiently assimilated.

The same month, a ruling that male Muslim students at a school in northern Switzerland will no longer have to shake hands with their female teachers caused an uproar in the country.

Christoph Eymann, who heads the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education insisted, “We cannot tolerate that women in the public service are treated differently from men.”

The incident was widely publicised and as a result, authorities suspended the naturalisation request from the boys’ father, who was an imam at the Basel mosque.



Swiss law expects candidates for citizenship to prove that they are well assimilated in their communities and respect local customs and traditions.

In Switzerland, local town or village councils make initial decisions on naturalisation applications. If they decide a candidate is not an upstanding member of the community, the application will be denied and not forwarded to canton (state) and federal authorities for further processing.

This article originally appeared on USA Today.