On April 21, an article was published in Topo, the student magazine of the University of Geneva, in which Kaouthar Najim reported on the daily life of Muslim students who were forced to pray in a stairwell on campus. The reason? The university does not provide a space where the devout students can perform their five daily prayers. This status quo has persisted for four years, but now it is escalating.
The article denounces “provocations”: “Posters showing the cover of Charlie Hebdo with sensitive depictions of the Muslim religion were pasted on the walls of the stairwell,” the student writes, illustrating her article with a picture of a prayer rug thrown into a rubbish bin. This information was confirmed by Otmane El Ainouni, a member of the Association du monde arabe de l’Université de Genève (Amage). He reported that Muslim students registered in the same WhatsApp group had sent these photos to each other and complained that a bad climate had developed without the institution reacting.
While the dispute with the institution has been going on for four years, the situation among the students is now starting to get uncomfortable. But despite repeated requests for such a prayer room, they are denied it because the desired use would be illegal. This is because the law on the secularity of the state, updated in 2018, states that any acts of worship in public spaces are forbidden, as Rector Yves Flückiger explains in his decision to refuse: “The University of Geneva guarantees freedom of conscience and belief as well as strict religious neutrality, from which the prohibition of any acts of worship in all its buildings results.”
Hafid Ouardiri, former spokesperson for the Geneva mosque and head of the Fondation de l’entre-connaissance, believes that this is “a form of injustice”: “The existence of a Christian chaplaincy is necessarily linked in some way to the expression of worship”, says Ouardiri. Protestant chaplain Jean-Michel Perret resists this postulate, recalling that he is a “tenant of the university” and does “neither worship nor pray” within its infrastructure. Incidentally, he recalls: “When imams came to study at the Faculty of Theology, they had expressly asked to be allowed to pray with us. Legally, we had had to refuse this.”
But what exactly are the students demanding? The establishment of a “meditation room”, according to an online petition started four years ago and recently revived. According to the 3,000 petitioners, members of all denominations should be able to come together in a place where they can ” regain strength and enjoy a spiritually calming place”. They point out that this is already the case in the universities of Zurich, St Gallen and Lausanne. “Services and masses are held in the meditation room at the University of Lausanne, and very many students take advantage of the opportunity to come for reflection several times a day,” explains Anouk Troyon, a Reformed chaplain. (…) Le Temps
