Sanija Ameti speaks for the first time after the shooting at an image of a saint

In September, green-liberal politician Sanija Ameti caused nationwide outrage with a single post on the social media platform Instagram. In the picture she shot a picture of St. Mary and Jesus with a sports pistol.

She immediately deleted the post and apologized. But she turned the public and politicians against her. She resigned from the local council and was fired from her position as a public relations consultant. She has since withdrawn from the public eye.

Three months after the events, the politician commented on her actions for the first time in an interview with “Switzerland at the Weekend”. The co-president of Operation Libero also holds out the prospect of her return to political activity.

“Completely tired”

Ameti repeatedly reiterated in the interview published on Saturday that her actions were a mistake. She is still “infinitely sorry for what I did and caused,” and she does not want to justify the incident in any way. “I’m ashamed of this mistake,” she said. Taking responsibility for this also means facing the consequences. Ameti received death threats and was temporarily under police protection. GLP President Jürg Grossen also called for her to be expelled from the party.

The reason Ameti even came up with the idea of ​​shooting at the image of the Virgin Mary that evening was that she was overworked and “completely tired” after several night shifts: “Sport shooting helps me in situations like this,” she says.

But then something happened in her head that threw her “off track”: she thought about her family and her brother, who was killed while trying to escape in the 1990s. «When I looked at the picture on the wall, I didn’t see anything. I just felt pain,” says Ameti.

To deal with the pain, she posted the picture on social media. On a “normal day” she would have talked to someone about it. “The cell phone was there, and so I did what I would never have done if I had thought about it,” she explains her action.

Social media has taken over a large part of politicians’ everyday lives. The boundaries between real, private life and digital, public life would eventually disappear.

“I am an atheist”

However, Ameti does not provide an explanation as to why she shot at a religious picture. She simply used a page from an auction catalog that was lying on a pile of waste paper as her target.

“I have always kept religion as far away from me as possible,” she says, emphasizing that she is an “atheist.” However, her Muslim origins will be taken into account as soon as she makes a mistake. It irritates her when “an identity is forced” on her.

The reaction of the Catholic Women’s Association and the fact that Bishop Bonnemain had forgiven her was “one of the most beautiful things” she had experienced. At the Catholic Church she found humanism and enlightenment that she missed elsewhere.

Ameti explains that she has not had the courage to leave the house in the last few weeks, but that she can now do so again. She is no longer on sick leave and is able to attend to her obligations again.

Exclusion of Ametis a “complex process”

She received a lot of support from the GLP base. Ameti does not want to comment on GLP President Jürg Grossen. “It was never an option for me to end my political involvement,” she says. She wants to remain green-liberal, the GLP is her “political home”.

In a statement on Saturday, the Green Liberals Zurich wrote that they received a letter from the national party in September regarding the exclusion of Sanija Ameti from the party. This is a “complex process” under association law.

Discussions with Ameti are currently underway, but the internal processing has been delayed due to her sick leave. The process would be completed “in the next few weeks”.

The Operation Libero board wrote in a blog post that it wanted to retain Ameti as co-president of the movement.