‘I never defend an act, just the person behind it’
Lawyers are seen by some for being unscrupulous money-grabbers who would step over corpses to win their cases. Valentin Landmann says he is no such creature. He defends fringe groups, such as the Hells Angels and people working in the red light district.
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Landmann is a bit of a maverick and doesn’t own a suit. In court he wears a blazer and a tie with jeans. Most of the time, he leaves his briefcase at home because “there is no time during the trial to pass around documents”.
He admits that he is sometimes confronted with the dark side of the human psyche. But he says he has been able to maintain a positive attitude towards life and has kept his faith in human nature.
As a Swiss Abroad, how do you feel about the emergence of more conservative family policies in some US states?
In recent years several US states have adopted more conservative policies on family issues, abortion and education. As a Swiss citizen living there, how do you view this development?
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Through his unique sense of humour and his honest take on life, Noha openly explains the prejudices he faces and how he deals with this.
‘People should be allowed to choose when they want to die’
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In 2017, 734 people ended their lives using the services of assisted suicide organisation, Exit, which operates in German- and Italian-speaking Switzerland. Erica, a 65-year-old assisted suicide counsellor explains what her job entails, what preconceptions she faces and why you have to love people in order to be there for them in the last minutes of…
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Earning a living through death: working as an undertaker certainly wouldn't suit everyone, but Michael is anything but unhappy with his workday.
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In Switzerland a young person commits suicide about every three days. An innovative prevention campaign wants to encourage young people to seek help.
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This week we meet Tristan aka “Ennia Face”, a 37-year-old drag queen from Zurich. He’s been dressing up as a woman for 20 years, even though some deemed it very uncool to be feminine as a gay man in the 1990s. Why does he prefer to dress as a woman? “Women wear glitter, are more coiffured and generally…
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There are a lot of clichés when it comes to the police: they smoke confiscated marijuana, never get fines, are all right-wing and enjoy violence. Bap, a 27-year-old policeman, fills us in first hand on what’s true and what’s just a myth. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)
The lighter and darker sides of being nearly blind
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Yves is visually impaired, but he doesn't feel that he's at a disadvantage. He avoids other visually impaired people who moan about it.
Drug addiction: ‘I pretended I had it under control’
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Reda explains what it was like being a junkie, about the culture of lying, and how the highs are not as great as people might think.
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"True Talk" puts people in front of the camera who are fighting prejudice. We speak to Hitzi, who says Switzerland is not at all wheelchair friendly.
Fynn: ‘I don’t have to choose between being a man or a woman’
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“True Talk” puts people in front of the camera who are fighting prejudice. They answer questions that nobody would normally dare to ask directly. This week, we speak to Fynn who defines himself as non-binary. He says the climate is much safer now for people to declare themselves as trans. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)
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