 "People walk past a billboard with a picture of the late Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in a street in Tehran, Iran, October 2, 2024. Reuters")
The Swiss government on Thursday said that it is not going to ban Hezbollah after it drafted a law to ban Hamas.
The parliamentary security committee had called for a ban on all activities of the Lebanese terror outfit but the federal government did not go through with it saying that certain conditions had not been met.
Switzerland’s Federal Council said the group could not be banned as a threat to security under the country’s intelligence act because the existing law required sanctions or a ban by the United Nations to be in place in order for such a move to be applied.
“Bans on organisations must continue to follow this political line,” it said, judging that it was “not appropriate” to create a new law to ban Hezbollah.
Why does the Swiss govt want to ban Hamas?
After Hamas’ October 7 attack, the Swiss government drafted a law banning the Palestinian terror group over its “unprecedented terrorist attacks” based on the practice of prescribing organisations on a case-by-case basis only “for extremely serious reasons”.
Why does the security committee want to ban Hezbollah?
The lower house of parliament’s security committee had said that “like Hamas, Hezbollah is a radical Islamic terrorist organisation responsible for numerous acts of violence and human rights violations” which “represents a threat to the stability of the entire region”.
It demanded that the government “issue a comprehensive ban on Hezbollah”.
Parliament will consider the government’s position during its December 2-20 session, and will also vote on the law to ban Hamas, Swiss news agency Keystone-ATS reported.
The draft law provides for a five-year ban on Hamas.
With inputs from AFP