Switzerland Today

Dear Swiss Abroad,

Have you heard of the “Sarco” suicide capsule (pictured above, and close-up below)? The controversial 3D-printed device, which claims to provide assisted suicide at the touch of a button, was presented to the media this summer.

But several cantonal authorities have put up fierce resistance to the futuristic capsule. Now events are coming thick and fast for the people linked to the project.

Happy reading!

Keystone / Ennio Leanza

One assisted suicide and several people arrested: the unauthorised use of the “Sarco” suicide capsule has triggered criminal proceedings in Switzerland.

The futuristic suicide capsule gained much attention in Switzerland in July after it was banned by several cantons. On Monday Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider commented on the capsule for the first time. She told the House of Representatives that it was “not legally compliant”. On the one hand it didn’t meet product safety requirements, according to federal law. Second, the use of nitrogen also violates Swiss law.

But today it was reported that in canton Schaffhausen in northern Switzerland a person had taken their life in the capsule on Monday. According to Swiss public radio, SRF, the public prosecutor’s office was informed early yesterday evening that an assisted suicide had taken place in a forest hut in Merishausen using the capsule. The dead woman is said to have been a 64-year-old American woman, according to media reports. Several people have been detained and a criminal case has been opened in connection with the suspected death.

“Sarco” was invented by an Australian doctor. The capsule  is designed to allow a person inside to push a button that injects nitrogen gas into the sealed chamber. The person is then supposed to fall asleep and die by suffocation in a few minutes. Suicide with “Sarco” is advertised as a cheap, painless death.

– The report by SRFExternal link.

Keystone-SDA

Voting office made a gross error when counting. In St. Gallen, the wrong party was declared the winner on Sunday.

St. Gallen is in the headlines in German-speaking Switzerland as votes were counted incorrectly in the city parliament elections. The centre-right Radical-Liberal Party and right-wing Swiss People’s Party were mistakenly declared the winners. The St. Galler Tagblatt newspaper talked of an unexplainable “shift to the right. The national committee of the Radical-Liberal Party was also surprised by the result.

But the polling station corrected the result yesterday evening. The Radical-Liberals did not gain any seats. Instead, they lost one, while the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Liberal Green Party retained a narrow majority. “The error is due to human error,” said the head of the polling station.

A few hundred votes also switched sides in canton Appenzell Inner Rhodes and 1,600 signatures for an initiative can no longer be found in Bern. “Is Switzerland not as solid as it thinks it is?” asks the NZZ. A Swiss election observer says that more care is needed in Switzerland. But the bottom line is that voting works well.

Article in External linkNZZExternal link (in German).

Keystone / Anthony Anex

How left-of-centre parties are using referendums to fight a centre-right parliament.

Sunday’s resounding defeat of the government- and parliament-backed reform of the occupational pension scheme was a triumph for the left. But not the only one: over the past four years, six out of ten left-wing referendums have been successful, writes Blick newspaper. During the same period, centre-right parties have only won two referendums.

“Is parliament doing politics without taking the public into account?” asks Blick. The federal parliament is currently dominated by rightwing and centre-right parties, but in recent times when decisions are put to the people, they have tended to vote differently.

“The left currently has three times more referendum power than the right,” says political scientist Cloé Jans.

And things are set to continue in November. The leftwing Social Democratic Party is optimistic about the referendum on an amendment to tenancy law that parliament has passed. Blick predicts opposition to motorway expansions to result in a defeat. The Social Democrats are not the only ones to oppose parliament’s decisions with referendums; Green Party President Lisa Mazzone has also announced “a referendum legislature”.

Article in Blick (in French).External link

Keystone-SDA

Climate change is resulting in fewer chestnut trees in southern Switzerland.

Autumn is chestnut season in Switzerland and the harvest has begun in canton Ticino. There, the chestnut is more than just a fruit. Its 2,000-year-old history is a symbol of the survival of the population south of the Alps, as Giorgio Moretti, president of the Chestnut Growers’ Association, told Swiss-Italian public radio, RSI.

But the chestnut tree is under threat. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were over 9,000 hectares of chestnut forests in cantons Ticino and Graubünden. But today there are only 400 that are still actively cultivated.

The trees are suffering from climate change. High temperatures and a lack of rainfall are causing problems.

“They put the tree under stress and make it susceptible to disease. In extreme cases, this damage can lead to the death of the chestnut trees,” explains Marco Conedera from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL.

Report by RSIExternal link (in Italian)

Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

Alpine herdsmen yodel at a traditional cattle show in canton Appenzell Inner Rhodes in eastern Switzerland on September 24, 2024.