Excerpt:
A one-year pilot project offering religious and spiritual guidance to asylum-seekers of the Muslim faith has been launched in Zurich. Christian and Jewish religious services of the same nature have been available to migrants since 2002.
As of July 1, the federal asylum centre in Zurich began offering religious services to Muslims through a collaboration between the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) and the Zurich-based Association of Islamic Organisations (VIOZ). Three Muslim religious advisers – two men and one woman – have been appointed based on the recommendations of VIOZ. They will each be working at 70% capacity.
The pilot project was developed in close collaboration with the Catholic and Protestant church associations as well as the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities given their experience in offering similar services for migrants since 2002.