Switzerland looks to make stalking a separate offence
Switzerland’s House of Representatives voted in favour of changing the law to make stalking a separate offence on Thursday.
The aim of the bill, which was approved by 151 votes to 29 with nine abstentions, is to better protect the victims of stalking. It will now go to the Senate.
A decree for the new offence of stalking was drafted by the legal affairs committee. According to the draft, anyone who persistently stalks, harasses or threatens someone and thereby restricts their freedom to live their life could be punishable with a prison sentence of up to three years or a fine.
+ Lack of law on stalking bemoaned
A motion from the ranks of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party not to vote in favour of the bill did not receive a majority.
Adapted from German by DeepL/kp
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
        In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
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.