Zurich Green Liberal Party (GLP) politician Sanija Ameti has sparked outrage with a tasteless post on Instagram after publishing photos of a shooting exercise in which she took aim at an image of Mary and Jesus, as Blick reported.
“Switch off,” wrote the local councilor who is co-president of Operation Libero. The perforated heads of Mary and the baby Jesus could be seen.
The reactions were fierce. The Russian propaganda channel RT took up the matter, and Romanian nationalists and Catholics from the United States also spread the screenshots on social media.
Nicolas Rimoldi, president of the Mass-Voll movement, announced that he would be filing a criminal complaint against Ameti on Monday, accusing her of interfering with religious freedom. Anyone who publicly insults or mocks the religious beliefs of others or “dishonors” objects of religious worship can be punished with a fine.
From Rimoldi’s point of view, it is also an incitement to violence. “Imagine if I had shot a picture of Alain Berset in 2021. Federal police would have been at my door. We must not tolerate violence and hatred,” he said.
Ameti is known for her provocations, regularly making headlines for her outrageous remarks and irritating the right-wing camp.
She was criticized previously, for example, when she made comments during an SRF program two years ago that the two candidates for the Federal Council at the time, Albert Rösti (57) and Hans-Ueli Vogt (54), would not even be appealing to her if she were drunk.
In this case, Ameti now claims in all seriousness that she did not seek to deliberately provoke anyone. “As a template for the 10-meter shooting, I needed motifs that were visible enough.” She only had an art catalog on hand and allegedly didn’t pay any attention to the motif, she wrote on Instagram. She apologized for the action and deleted the posts immediately. “That was absolutely stupid of me. I didn’t think anything of it,” she wrote. “I’m incredibly sorry. I ask for forgiveness from the people who were hurt by this.”
Jürg Grossen (55), president of the GLP Switzerland, is not buying it. “This behavior by Sanjia Ameti is unacceptable. It was a deliberate provocation,” he is convinced. The GLP Switzerland is also seeking talks with her. “We are not ruling out consequences.”
Sanija Ameti is a Bosnian Muslim whose family came to Switzerland as refugees in 1995.
