For the Zurich SP government councilor Jacqueline Fehr, the statements made are “intolerable”. Sharp criticism also came from the bourgeois camp.
The tweet by a Solothurn politician, in which he made disparaging remarks about orthodox Jews, caused indignation in Zurich. The picture shows the Agudas Achim synagogue in Wiedikon.
It took a while for his message to gain a lot of attention: A tweet posted last week by former Solothurn GLP cantonal council candidate Fisnik Z. caused a lot of criticism on social networks on Thursday. In his problematic tweet he addressed the city of Zurich with the following question: “Which form do you have to fill out in order to get your own district in Zurich like the ultra-Orthodox Jews and at the same time not be condemned for living backwards?”
In doing so, Fisnik was possibly playing in an anti-Semitic manner on the invisible border of the so-called Eruv, which is planned in Zurich and is intended to connect three city districts with nylon thread. This is intended to give orthodox Jews more freedom on the Sabbath.
The statements of the former young politician caused cross-party criticism. The Zurich SP government councilor Jacqueline Fehr commented on the statements as “intolerable” and joined the Zurich FDP cantonal councilor Sonja Rueff-Frenkel. She was shocked in a statement about the statement by the former young politician: she was “speechless”. Opposite to “20 minutes” she explained that the tweet was shocking. “That a person who was in the public eye last year shares such thoughts on Twitter is outrageous.”
The two Zurich FDP councilors Jehuda Spielman and Përparim Avdili, who also chairs the city FDP, also condemned the tweet. Avdili said the publication of such views was shameful and the fact that Fisnik worked as a teacher was all the more concerning. His party colleague Spielman meanwhile addressed the former GLP man directly on Twitter and accused him of medieval intolerance and backwardness.
Opposite to “20 minutes” Spielman pointed out that such statements were “clearly anti-Semitic”. The conspiracy theory that the Jewish community has acquired an entire district of Zurich has been circulating on the internet for a long time. More educational work is needed in order to be able to take sustainable action against such ideas as in Fisnik’s tweet.
The said tweet has since been deleted by the author. However, the account, which was only created in August of this year, also attracts attention with other statements, some of which are provocative. After various critical statements on Twitter, the former young politician Fisnik, who teaches as a primary school teacher in the canton of Solothurn, studies history at the University of Zurich and also publishes articles for the “Baba News” platform, was forced to explain his statements on Thursday morning.
I find the life lived in this neighborhood to be backwards. But that doesn’t mean they can’t live like that. In particular, I personally find religious freedom important, which is why the accusation of racism is absolutely incomprehensible to me.
(2/2)— Fisnik Z. September 8, 2022
In a statement, he wrote that his statement had been misunderstood – probably because of his sarcastic undertone, he says. However, he did not want to apologize for his statements.
In no way did he “generalize” groups of people, but wanted to draw attention to the orthodox quarter in the city of Zurich. This is because he finds the life lived in this neighborhood to be “backward”. The “accusation of racism” made by other people is therefore incomprehensible to him.
Since Fisnik was still listed on the Solothurner GLP website as a cantonal candidate for 2021, his former party was then forced to react and deleted his candidate profile from the site. A statement said that Fisnik has not been a member of the party since last year. He ran for the party as a candidate for the cantonal council, failed and then left the party again. “He left the GLP because he does not represent our party position,” it said.
The young party, for which Fisnik originally ran, has now also publicly distanced itself from the statements made by its former candidate. The statements in no way correspond to the opinion of the Green Liberal Party or the Young Green Liberals. The GLP of the canton of Zurich made a similar statement, which sharply condemned the statements. The party is committed to an open and tolerant society.