GENEVA: UN human rights chief Navi Pillay today sharply criticised a Swiss vote banning minarets, condemning a growing wave of “anti-foreigner scaremongering” in several countries.

The right-wing proposal for a ban, approved by more than 57 per cent of voters in a referendum, was “discriminatory, deeply divisive and a thoroughly unfortunate step for Switzerland to take,” Pillay said.

She warned that it “risks putting the country on a collision course with its international human rights obligations,” because of its discrimination against a single religion. “I hesitate to condemn a democratic vote,” the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement.

“But I have no hesitation at all in condemning the anti-foreigner scaremongering that has characterised political campaigns in a number of countries, including Switzerland, which helps produce results like this.”

“I urge people everywhere to take this issue of discimination seriously,” Pillay said. “If allowed to gather momentum, discrimination and intolerance not only do considerable harm to individual members of the targetted group, they also divide and harm society in general.” The UN rights chief cautioned that “politics based on xenophobia and intolerance” of religion, racial or ethnic origin was “extremely disquieting.” “It is corrosive and — beyond a certain point — can become socially disruptive and even dangerous.”

“We are not at that point in Switzerland, but this initiative, taken alongside some of the blatantly xenophobic posters in this and several recent political campaigns targetting asylum seekers, migrants or foreigners in general, is part of an extremely worrying trend,” she added.