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Switzerland to hold a referendum on ending coronavirus restrictions

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Switzerland to hold a referendum on ending coronavirus restrictions
The referendum could be voted on in June. Photo by AFP

The vote is a bid to nullify the 2020 Covid-19 Act, the Swiss law outlining the government’s pandemic measures.

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The association "Friends of the Constitution" filed a referendum against Switzerland's Covid-19 legislation at the Federal Chancellery in Bern on Tuesday.

The group collected nearly 90,000 signatures, 40,000 more than required by law to launch a nationwide referendum. 

The association believes that the Covid-19 law, passed by the parliament in September 2020, is unnecessary, because it mainly deals with financial services that the government can regulate by federal decrees, even without emergency powers.

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The "Friends of the Constitution" also believe the Covid-19 law would allow the introduction of a “compulsory system with poorly tested vaccines”, which the Federal Council has repeatedly denied.

“The success of the referendum would be a call on the authorities to exercise the utmost caution in the vaccination campaign and even impose a moratorium on it”, the group’s spokesperson, Christoph Pfluger, told Keystone-ATS news agency. 

The vote on the Covid-19 Act will take place in June 2021 at the earliest, when the law will already be in force for nine months.

READ MORE: EXPLAINED: Five questions about Covid-19 vaccines in Switzerland

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