Politics

Swiss Writer Thrown In Jail For Calling Reporter ‘Fat Lesbian’

Published

on

A Swiss court’s decision to sentence a commentator with 60 days in prison plus thousands in Swiss francs previews the danger that criminalizing “hate speech” poses to free speech.

On Monday, the French-Swiss writer Alain Bonnet, also known as Alain Soral, was sentenced for defamation, discrimination, and incitement of hatred for his criticism of Swiss journalist Catherine Macherel. Bonnet was convicted for comments made on a Facebook video two years ago where he called Macherel a “fat lesbian.”

Fox News reported Wednesday that a lesbian activist group celebrated the decision.

“This court decision is an important moment for justice and rights of LGBTQI people in Switzerland,” said Murial Waeger, one of the directors of LOS, a lesbian activist group. “The conviction of Alain [Bonnet] is a strong signal that homophobia hatred cannot be tolerated in our society.”

Fox News reported in a follow-up story Thursday that the two-month prison sentence “alarms free speech advocates.” But while the episode might shock American audiences, Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi outlined in his 2021 book Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent how this kind of censorship has become routine on the other side of the Atlantic:

Free speech in Europe is contingent on the vagaries, conditions, and restrictions connected to concerns over ‘national security,’ ‘territorial disorder,’ ‘crime,’ and protections of ‘health or morals’ or the state — which are all flexible notions that empower the government to impose arbitrary limits on expression as long as

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this ARTICLE. This post was originally published on another website.

Trending

Exit mobile version