How well are you currently sleeping?
Sanija Ameti: I sleep well because I’m so overtired. Because of the voting, I have meetings almost every evening, organize campaigns and distribute flyers. From midnight to two o’clock, I do press work or write arguments. Then I fall into bed dead tired.
I ask because, according to a survey, 68 percent are in favor of the law. Is that gnawing at you?
Yes. Many have not looked at the law properly. They only read the slogan «Fight terrorism before it’s too late» – it is clear that you are for it. It was the same for me at first.
Why are you against it now?
You do not necessarily have to commit a criminal act and you do not have to plan any, you can only be classified as dangerous on the basis of very, very vague indications and be given appropriate measures. You have to keep this in mind: With the law, you can deprive a 15-year-old of liberty, i.e. place him under house arrest for months – without having prepared or even had a criminal offense in mind. Where is the presumption of innocence? We are doing the work for the terrorists.
On June 13, the Federal Law on Police Measures to Combat Terrorism (PMT) will go to the polls. A terrorist threat is “if, based on specific and current evidence, it must be assumed that he or she will engage in a terrorist activity”. The Federal Office of Police could take measures such as an obligation to report and participate in discussions, a ban on contact and travel out of the country, and house arrest for up to nine months. Most of these measures would be possible for people from the age of 12, only house arrest from the age of 15. The Federal Council and Parliament recommend accepting the proposal.
Now you are exaggerating.
Not at all. With the law we would abolish the freedoms for which we fought. Incidentally, the Council of Europe, the UN and our own foreign affairs department protested because of the excessive definition.
Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter says, however, that the law does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights – an expert report attests to that.
That’s not true. She omits the fact that in the said report under number 127 it is stated that house arrest is not permitted. But this is little known because hardly anyone reads the 91 pages of the report. It is precisely because of such misleading that we are filing a voting rights complaint.
What is meant by overflowing? What is the problem with the definition of terrorism?
It doesn’t hit the terrorists at all. This targets everyone who expresses themselves critically and is uncomfortable. For example politicians, journalists, corona deniers or climate youth.
The Justice Minister told the “Tages-Anzeiger” that the law defines terrorist activities as follows: efforts to influence or change the state order through the commission or order of serious crimes. “So we’re talking about people who stab passers-by with knives or drive cars in crowds to kill as many people as possible.”
Karin Keller-Sutter is only telling half the story. The law says: A terrorist is someone who threatens or commits a crime – and here it comes – or spreads fear and horror and thereby wants to influence the state order. She hides the spongy part with “or fear and horror spread”. That makes them permanent. So that the population does not notice that it is not just about people who attack passers-by with a knife. But about everyone who criticizes the state. Have you ever wondered why the law was formulated so vaguely?
No, what’s your explanation?
It’s about state control. The state wants to keep as many of us as possible in databases.
Are you afraid of a new fiche state?
Yes. The fiche pretended to act against communists. In the end, 900,000 Swiss nationals ended up in the card indexes well into the middle-class camp. At that time the fiche was a box of notes. Now it would be a very detailed collection of data. The Federal Office of Police, Fedpol, would have it. And what worries me: It would single-handedly order measures based on this, i.e. without being controlled by another authority – a court.
What kind of data are we talking about?
The Fedpol is likely to collect so-called particularly sensitive personal data, among other things. These include the state of health and membership in a party or in an association. An algorithm then uses this data to calculate who is a threat. And according to certain criteria.
What criteria?
Its obvious. The algorithm would filter out anyone who is dark-skinned, Muslim, has a weapon – including marksmen – and has a mental illness. He would discriminate against people.
Valeriano Di Domenico
Sanija Ameti was born in 1993 in the former Yugoslavia, now Bosnia. The family fled to Switzerland because of the war in Yugoslavia. Her father was a Muslim opposition politician and had been persecuted. This shaped the young woman: She studied constitutional and international law. Today she conducts research on cybersecurity at the University of Bern, sits on the party leadership of the GLP Canton of Zurich and heads the referendum committee against the anti-terror law. The referendum came about thanks to the opponents of the Covid law, “Friends of the Constitution”. Sanija Ameti lives with her partner in Zurich.
They fell into the Muslim category.
And I’m uncomfortable and politically active. You don’t like people like that. You saw that at the women’s demonstration on March 6th, when police officers beat a woman in Zurich. If the law is passed, we can only hope that the executing police will be hesitant. That they don’t abuse their power. Mani Matter has already sung about this in “Inhibited”: “And what me no cha hope is that they are inhibited.” Those who support the law have too much trust in God in the people and in the police.
One could also ask: Why are you so suspicious?
Because we in Switzerland are only human. Why should we be more empathetic and smarter than the people in the former Yugoslavia?
Your family comes from there.
Yes, my parents fled a police state.
Why?
The police broke into our house one night and took my father away. Because he was an oppositional Muslim politician. Years ago, the people who wanted him away were my parents’ best friends. None of us could have imagined that it would ever come to this. We said the same thing that you hear in Switzerland today: That won’t happen to us, we’re not a date republic. And then there was genocide.
The Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Muslim men in Bosnia.
Yes, in 1995, in the middle of Europe. This genocide, this horror shaped me. My parents came to Switzerland because they believed that the rule of law applies to everyone here. If we don’t improve the law, it will go ten or twenty years and we are at a similar point to what Yugoslavia was then. Not because we are bad, but because we are human.
You have a migration background, and you have a career as a politician and lawyer. Why isn’t this happening more often?
We have the wrong picture in mind. Some say to me in astonishment: “Ah, you were not born here, but you speak German well.”
But far fewer Hakans study at universities than Julians. Why?
There is a lack of equal opportunities. I was fortunate that my father is an academic and that he insisted that his children have some too. I wanted to study art history, he said: “I didn’t come to Switzerland to make art, you can become a doctor or a lawyer.” I’m a pragmatic person, I studied law and found that interesting too.
What would it take for others to make it too?
Political rights are needed. People with a migration background should have resident voting rights in their community. Then they would identify more strongly with their place of residence, get involved there and integrate faster.
Cyber security is your specialty. In March, the National Cyber Security Center wrote to over 3,000 companies for being hacked. The hackers each demand a ransom. Does that happen to us often?
It happens every day. Around the world, companies lose around 600 billion US dollars every year due to cyber attacks. There are no figures for Switzerland. But it is a popular destination because there is more money to be had here than anywhere else.
Why is it rarely heard of?
If the company were to disclose an attack, it would mean: You don’t have your security under control. That would be bad for business.
Which companies does it hit?
Many SMEs. Because they think no one will attack them anyway. They invest too little in safety and do not train their staff properly. Most attacks happen because an employee opens the wrong e-mail and then there is a system shutdown. Or spy software is smuggled in to suck up data for years.
Hackers recently paralyzed the largest fuel pipeline in the United States. Would something like that also be possible with us?
A power failure is conceivable. Or that the systems of an entire hospital fail. Hospitals in particular are poorly equipped. And last summer, a report stated that of all things the command support base (FUB), the unit within the Swiss army that is officially allowed to carry out cyber attacks, is not itself well equipped against hacker attacks.
We talked about impending dangers, dark forces. What actually is evil for you?
Evil is so banal that we don’t even recognize it. The US soldier who went to the Iraq war and said he was fighting terrorists to save the Iraqi people. In the end, however, he tortured people himself. Or the Fedpol policeman who thinks he is doing the country a service and then treating the innocent as future terrorists. He doesn’t torture, but he destroys lives. This is what makes the PMT law so dangerous.