WHO is WHO - Sanija Ameti: Swiss politician who likes to shoot at icons

She is involved in politics and enjoys shooting guns. She particularly likes clear targets. The icon of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus Christ seemed good enough to her, so she shared her sharpshooting experience with her followers on social media.

Sanija Ameti, a councilor of the Swiss Liberal Green Party from Zurich and a member of the "Operation Libero" movement, found herself in the middle of a scandal precisely because she shot at a reproduction of the painting Madonna with Child and Archangel Michael by Tomaso del Mazza from the 14th century.

She grouped three shots in the head of the Virgin Mary and multiple shots in the baby Jesus. After that, she removed the post with the photos and apologized.

"I didn't pay attention to the content of the picture," claimed Sanija Ameti.

She explained that she obtained the image from an auction house catalog.

That painting is supposed to be sold on September 20 for at least 150,000 francs.

She admitted that it was inappropriate to choose that specific image and that her action was "absolutely stupid."

Several conservative politicians condemned Ameti's action and demanded her resignation, while the youth of the SVP (Swiss People's Party) immediately filed a criminal complaint against her.

The cantonal parliament of Bern, the Grand Council, received this request because Ameti is a PhD student at the University of Bern.

Some politicians accused her of inciting hatred against Christians.

However, she describes herself as being dedicated to well-ordered and stable relations between Switzerland and the EU.

"My vision of postmodern Switzerland is progressive, innovative, and socially liberal," Ameti states on her profile for the Liberal Green Party.

Since May 2022, she has been a municipal councilor for the city of Zurich, representing districts 4 and 5.

Campaign from Pristina

Last year, she ran for the Zurich Cantonal Council but did not succeed.

She began her campaign from Pristina.

"It's time! My campaign for the National Council starts today, August 1st. But not just anywhere: at the Pristina airport. Why?" Ameti posted last year on her "X" account after a large billboard featuring her photograph was placed at the Pristina Airport.

At that time, the media reported that she wanted to draw attention to her dual Swiss-Kosovo citizenship.

Most media outlets in Pristina reported that she was a politician born in Kosovo.

Emphasizing her ties to Kosovo, last year, at a panel in Bern, she wore a Swiss Army camouflage uniform, and when asked whose it was, she replied that it belonged to Islmaj—a young man whose parents fled to Switzerland from Kosovo.

In an interview with Tages Anzeiger, she also complained about Switzerland, where, as she stated, her parents fled from Kosovo in 1995.

However, her criticism of the Swiss system did not go unanswered.

"If Sanija Ameti had grown up in Kosovo instead of Switzerland, she might not have been allowed to attend university at the taxpayers' expense, nor might she have been allowed to study law. And maybe that would have been less revealing. And maybe she wouldn’t be allowed to choose her husband," was one of the criticisms expressed in Weltwoche.

However, according to information about her from Wikipedia, as well as from Swiss press reports on the incident, Ameti is a politician who came to Switzerland with her parents in 1995 from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

She has been in Switzerland since the age of three. Her father was a biology professor and politician in the former SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) before the war.

She graduated in 2011 from the Cantonal School in Zurich and then completed a law degree at the University of Zurich, focusing on cybersecurity.

She has so far stood out with her sharp views on Russia, as well as various Swiss laws.

She was vocal in opposing the 2021 referendum decision that Muslim women should not be allowed to cover their faces in public.

The decision was passed with 51.2% in favor and 48.8% against.

As a member of the Swiss Muslim community, Ameti told the BBC at the time that the campaign was offensive to Muslims.

"So many Muslim women in Switzerland will feel offended and feel that they are not part of this society, pushed into a corner where they don’t belong. We don’t look like those women on the posters, we simply don’t look like that," Ameti said.

She also opposed the adoption of a law to combat terrorism in Switzerland.

"This is a law that violates fundamental human rights," she stated in 2021.

She became politically active shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She joined the executive board of the Young Green Liberal Party of Switzerland in 2019, and by the following year, became a member of the party leadership for the Canton of Zurich.

In October 2020, she took over the co-presidency of the political movement Operation Libero from Laura Zimmermann.