Swiss man who compared parliament member to Hitler gets suspended fine
The man implicitly compared a Social Democrat MP to Hitler on Facebook.
Keystone / Bernd Weissbrod
A 50-year-old Zurich man has been given a suspended fine for defamation and slander after he compared Social Democrat parliamentarian Tamara Funiciello to Adolf Hitler on Facebook.
This content was published on
1 minute
Keystone-SDA/jc
Русский
ru
Швейцарца, сравнившего депутата с Гитлером, оштрафовали условно
He was given a suspended fine of CHF3,750 ($4,370) and ordered to pay CHF800 in legal costs.
The offence occurred last September, the day after a popular vote in which Swiss citizens approved raising the legal retirement age for women from 64 to 65.
MP Funiciello expressed her anger in a Facebook comment, saying that “old white men” were responsible for the result. The Zurich man responded by saying she reminded him of a man who, in the 1930s and 1940s, shouted and talked about fighting. This person was also against part of the population and said he was left-wing, the defendant commented on Facebook.
Funiciello then lodged a complaint. The Zurich public prosecutor found that even if the man did not explicitly mention Hitler’s name, it was clear that he was referring to Hitler. It deemed that nobody has the right to publicly compare a democratically elected politician with an anti-democratic mass murderer.
Online hate speech is a growing problem in Switzerland. A number of initiatives have been set up in recent years to try and tackle the problem, including an online platform for reporting racist hate speech on the Internet.
Popular Stories
More
Identities
Switzerland’s most renowned trans person no longer wants to be a woman
Report finds serious security flaws in Swiss hospital information systems
This content was published on
The IT systems of several Swiss hospitals suffer from serious security flaws, according to the National Testing Institute for Cybersecurity (NTC).
Cost of leisure activities rises dramatically in Switzerland
This content was published on
The Swiss paid more for leisure activities in December. Prices for vacation apartments, package tours and cable cars rose significantly.
New Swiss epidemic surveillance centre inaugurated
This content was published on
The Centre for Pathogen Bioinformatics was inaugurated in Bern on Thursday. It aims to improve epidemics monitoring in Switzerland using genomic data.
This content was published on
Switzerland, as a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), signed a free trade agreement with Thailand during WEF.
This content was published on
The federal audit office has criticised the Swiss government for poor planning of the procurement of six drones from an Israeli supplier.
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Online hate speech targets black and Jewish people
This content was published on
More than 160 pieces of racist content have been flagged via a new reporting platform, says the Federal Commission against Racism.
This content was published on
A slim majority of voters has endorsed a proposed reform of the basic old-age pension scheme in a ballot billed as key in Swiss politics.
Swiss launch platform to report racist speech online
This content was published on
Switzerland has a new platform for reporting racist hate speech on the Internet, the Federal Commission against Racism (FCR) has announced.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.