Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Swiss anti-radicalisation centre contacted almost every week

Winterthur mosque
Winterthur was once at the centre of a radicalisation probe. KEYSTONE/© KEYSTONE / WALTER BIERI

An extremism prevention initiative in Switzerland has been kept busy with calls from the public, who are mostly reporting cases of suspected radicalisation.

Between April 2021 and December 2023, the centre for extremism and violence prevention in Winterthur dealt with a total of 111 enquiries. That’s an average of between three and four per month. The contact centre, which was developed for Winterthur, attracts attention far beyond the city.

Do you want to read our weekly top stories? Subscribe here.

The majority of those seeking advice came from the city, as can be seen in the activity report published on Tuesday. According to the report, 77 Winterthur residents contacted the centre for advice by phone, email or in person.

More

However, 24 people from canton Zurich and ten others from outside the canton also contacted the centre. Its managers attribute this in part to “the high profile of the contact centre”, as they write in a press release.

+ Controversial Winterthur mosque closed down

Most enquiries in the reporting period from April 2021 to December 2023 came from professionals at schools, or in youth and social work. In 96 of the 111 cases, the focus was on the behaviour of individuals that could potentially indicate radicalisation.

The centre for extremism and violence prevention in Winterthur was set up in 2016 as one of the first specialist centres on this topic in Switzerland. It serves as an easily accessible contact for questions relating to violence prevention, radicalisation, and extremism. It also organises a prevention forum for associations and shares its knowledge in workshops and presentations.

Adapted from German by DeepL/dkk/ma

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

Most Read
Swiss Abroad

Most Discussed

News

More than 1,100 Swiss cheeses on show in Lugano

More

Swiss Cheese Awards winners announced

This content was published on The three best Swiss cheeses were chosen on Friday in Lugano from over 1100 products submitted to an international jury.

Read more: Swiss Cheese Awards winners announced
Switzerland delivers equipment worth 5.6 million to Ukraine

More

Switzerland will deliver rubble removal equipment to Ukraine

This content was published on Thirty rubble removal machines and thirty fire-fighting pumps: this is the equipment that Switzerland will be delivering to the Ukraine in the next few days. The total value of these goods is 5.6 million Swiss francs.

Read more: Switzerland will deliver rubble removal equipment to Ukraine

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR