A minaret of a mosque in Switzerland. (AP)

Geneva, Nov. 29 (Reuters): Swiss voters today approved a ban on construction of new minarets, a surprise result certain to embarrass Switzerland’s neutral government.

Swiss news agency ATS and other media said about 57.5 per cent of voters and all but four of the 26 cantons approved the proposal in the nationwide referendum, which was backed by the Right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP).

The government and the parliament had rejected the initiative as violating the Swiss constitution, freedom of religion and the country’s cherished tradition of tolerance. The government had said a ban could “serve the interests of extremist circles”.

The government said it would respect the people’s decision and declared construction of new minarets would no longer be permitted.

“Muslims in Switzerland are able to practise their religion alone or in community with others and live according to their beliefs just as before,” it said in a statement.

Justice minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the outcome of the vote reflected a fear of Islamic fundamentalism, but the ban was “not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies”.

A group of politicians from the SVP and the Federal Democratic Union gathered enough signatures to force the referendum on the initiative which opposes the “Islamisation of Switzerland”.

Its campaign poster showed the Swiss flag covered in missile-like minarets and the portrait of a woman covered with a black chador and veil associated with strict Islam.

“We’re enormously happy. It is a victory for this people, this Switzerland, this freedom and those who want a democratic society,” Walter Wobmann, the president of the initiative committee, said in a victory speech in the town of Egerkingen near Berne.

The Alpine country of nearly 7 million people is home to more than 300,000 Muslims, mainly from Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey.