A court has dismissed a challenge by Muslim groups to Switzerland's minaret building ban.

According to The Associated Press, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the people filing the lawsuits - a former spokesman for a Geneva mosque and several Swiss Muslim groups - couldn't claim to be victims.

A panel of seven judges with the Strasbourg, France-based, court said Friday, July 8, the lawsuit failed to show how the ban "had any practical effect on them."

Swiss voters in 2009 approved a ban on minarets forcing the Swiss government - which had opposed the initiative - to declare illegal the building of any new towers in Switzerland to put out the Islamic call to prayer.