Sisule F. Musungu – On Sunday, 29th November 2009 the Swiss voted to ban minarets next to mosques! It is difficult to find any words to describe this. Happening the day before the start of the 7th WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva, which hosts the WTO and tens of international organisations and UN organs, including the UN Human Rights Council, the implications are significant. As a student of human rights, I find no other categorisation that the ban consists of not only extreme religious intolerance but also, and quite importantly, an extreme level of racial intolerance.

As we search for words to express our shock, our anger, our frustration, our disgust one hopes that at the Next Session of the Human Rights or in a special session, that I believe should be called, this form of extreme intolerance will be addressed.