It seems Andreas Glarner, an SVP member of the Swiss Nationalrat, is on a single-handedly mission to educate ignorant foreigners like me on how laws work around here.
In december 2022, a 20 min journalist (Mr Hansi Voigt)called Mr. Glarner a “crazy right-wing extremist” (Gaga-Rechtsextremist) in a tweet quoting Mr. Glarner telling “closer the Swiss borders to stop immigration”.
Mr. Glarner put a complaint at the time for insult and defamation. The journalist got a suspended fine by local court in Muri-Bremgarten (AG). The journalist appealed and the suspended fine was dismissed. Mr. Glarner did not agree with the local court and went for a higher court (cantonal)…
The prosecution argued that calling someone a right wing extremist is a defamation. For the prosecution, right wing extremist = Nazi & Third Reich.
The defense explained that right-wing extremist is not equal to Nazi because…that would be trivializing the Holocaust. Nazis look after genocide, so Mr. Voight never wanted to call Mr. Glarner a Nazi because there’s no reason to do it. Mr. Voigt wasn’t referring to Mr. Glarner as a person, but as a politician that politicizes in the extreme right-wing of the SVP. The Gaga part was used to describe the proposal of “closing Swiss borders”.
The court ruled that Mr. Voigt tweeted about Mr. Glarner as a politician, not as a person. The tweet is protected by freedom of expression. So, Mr. Voigt is acquitted. The court justified the decision by telling that simplifications and exaggerations are normal in political debate.
The fact that saved Mr. Journalist’s ass is that his tweet quoted this Argauer Zeitung article where Mr. Glarner requests for police checking IDs at borders again. The court said right-wing extremist is not an insult, but political classification.
One important lesson is the fact that is not legal to call Mr. Glarner (or anyone else) a “crazy right-wing extremist” in the street. It has to be linked to the current political debate. So, if you’re going to call a person a _______, make sure to quote an article, a video, or any other publicly available material to convey you’re commenting on the idea(s), not the person.
Mr. Glarner did not agree with the ruling of cantonal court, an appeal to the Federal Supreme Court is coming soon. So, we’ll keep learning about the Swiss justice system.
What a treat, a ruling from the Swiss Federal Supreme Court on freedom on expression VS defamation.
PS word of the day : Meinungsfreiheit = freedom of expression
Never heard of Glarner. Maybe he is what Hansi Voigt called him?
Why do you think it’s about teaching foreigners (like you as you wrote), is Hansi Voigt a foreigner? Never heard of him either.
However, the gaga bit seems right, I sure hope Glarner will have to pay for the case at the Federal Court!
“Teaching” refers to having public encounters with the judicial system several times a year, and these encounters widely reported in Swiss media. Only a couple weeks ago it was about publishing online the location of speed radars. We can learn from the life experiences of Mr. Glarner as long as we see the educational value in them. So, he’s teaching
PS. damned google, it translated it as freedom of expression.
Well, I think learning from Hansi Voigt would be better. Without having checked out this Glarner guy closer he doesn’t seem a role model for anybody.
As I keep saying to everyone: Drop google.
Freedom of expression/speech is Redefreiheit in German. But of course one has to think freely before speaking freely - so not all that wrong.
Glarner shoots himself in the foot all the time. AFAIK, it is a useful guide to make a criticism specific, as “you lied” rather than “you are a liar”. The latter is much more likely to get into defamation problems. In this case the journalist was sailing close to the wind, “acting like a right wing nutter” might have been wiser.
A quick search of German dictionaries shows that this appears to be the primary definition of that word, even though meinung on its own means opinion, the compound word has been used to mean freedom to express your opinion for a long time.
Yeah, I’ll gladly defer to native German speakers; my point is that it’s not just google that thinks that’s what it means.
While there is a difference in German between opinion and expression the freedom of opinion is absolutely nothing without the freedom of expression.
One thing we can rely on is that never, ever anybody can remove our own opinions/thoughts. Isn’t that kind of comforting at the moment?
There is an old German song that comes to mind again lately.
I know it sounds horribly German in this version but it was written in the 1800erds. And it has English subtitles.
