How handshakes have ignited a debate

When a Muslim couple sat down for a meeting with a municipal commission in the Swiss city of Lausanne, their interviewers found that they “showed great difficulty in answering questions asked by people of the opposite sex,” the city’s mayor said.

So they were both denied Swiss citizenship.

Mayor Gregoire Junod told AFP that the man and woman declined to shake hands with people of the opposite sex and that their behaviour during the interview signalled to the three-person commission interviewing them that they had not adequately integrated into Switzerland.

Despite laws that ensure freedom of religion, “religious practice does not fall outside the law,” Gregoire told AFP.

Handshaking has ignited a debate over the role of religion in Switzerland before, as some Muslims, with the exception of certain relatives, do not physically touch members of the opposite sex.

Swiss teachers often expect their students to shake their hands in a move that is considered to signal respect for their authority.

But in 2016, two male students from Syria refused to greet their female teacher in that way. The teenagers’ parents then faced fines of around US$5000, after the region’s educational authorities said “a teacher has a right to demand a handshake.”

Their school initially tried to compromise by telling the two students they didn’t have to shake any teacher’s hands. But authorities later ruled that “the public interest concerning gender equality as well as integration of foreigners far outweighs that concerning the freedom of belief of students.”

This past week, a Swedish woman won discrimination compensation after a company cut short her interview because she wouldn’t shake a man’s hand.

The New York Times reported that the woman, Farah Alhajeh, 24, instead put her hand over her heart and smiled when she was introduced to a man in the office. She explained that she couldn’t shake his hand for religious reasons, and the interview ended right then and there.

A Swedish labour court ruled that she was owed around US$4350. The labour court that ruled in her favour said that “the woman’s refusal to shake hands with people of the opposite sex is a religious manifestation that is protected under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights,” the New York Times reported. But the company saw it as a violation of gender equality.