“Many Swiss citizens see foreigners as a sort of danger, almost like a sort of phantoms”, while, "when they approach them in daily life, on the workplace, at Mass, in the street, they mostly see them as colleagues or friends, not as threats!”. The director of the Swiss Catholic press agency Apic, Jacques Berset, lingered on the contradictory attitude of its fellow citizens towards immigrants, two days after the referendum that on Sunday 24th September approved, with the large majority (68% of voters), the enforcement of harsher laws on asylum and foreigners. In a note on SIR Europa (on line from tonight at old.agensir.it), Berset comments that the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (Feps), the Swiss Bishops Conference (Ces) and the Swiss Federation of the Israelite Communities (Fsci) judge the approved acts as "inappropriate to regulate the problems that come to the fore" and even "contrary to the humanitarian tradition of Switzerland”. They, continues Berset, will keep "an attentive and critical eye on the enforcement" of such provisions and "will keep working for the respect of human dignity", but at the same time they "fear they might incur" the sanctions imposed "on those who will help people without a residence permit”.
