Recent announcement in the US got me wondering, and I dont know the answer …
Is Swiss flag burning legally permitted in CH? By a swiss citizen only? Permanent residents? Other permit holders?
What about EU countries?
TIA!
Cheers …
If the flag was put up by government.
Artikel 139, 141 und 144 StGB if it was put up by private people or organisations.
As flags don’t interest me much I leave the rest of the research to you.
If you feel like burning one, be my guest but I don’t think they’re cheap. After all, TIS.
What curley shared. If depends on who owns the flag.
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flag in a government office or military facility? big problem, time to hide under a rock and call the lawyer from there.
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flag hanging from your neighbor’s home? If your neighbor shares the desire to burn it, no issue at all. If not, it’s damaging private property.
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go to Otto’s and buy the cheapest flag to burn? no issues with the law. But that doesn’t insure against people getting upset and trigger a fight. Usual regulations about public disorder & assault apply.
I find it weird to burn a flag.
Getting upset about it even weirder 
You are not alone
2 Likes
11/10, superb, no further remarks
Everyone thinks about national flags.
But, one step back and think about football club flags. I take the flag from a football fan from his hands and burn it. Would getting upset be weird? I’d say getting upset would be normal. If a punch is thrown, I’d say still normal territory. If the punch becomes a beating…that’s the weird territory.
Point here is not provoking people for nothing. It may be a football club or a religious symbol in a piece of cloth. Don’t mess with any of them.
There is no greater metric of free speech than being able to burn one’s flag without consequence.
The only objection I would have is the toxic black smoke from 100% polyester flags.
I’m pretty certain that I wouldn’t object to a Swiss burning a Swiss, or Cantonal, flag. But I’m pretty sure I would object to a temporary or permanent resident doing so.
The particularity of religious symbols isn’t their physical properties, it’s about what they represent.
You don’t even need a proper physical object to attack or desecrate the symbolic value as we’ve seen not too long ago when a Swiss ex-politician conducted a shooting exercise with the foto of a painting of Mary and baby Jeses as the target. She has been charged for this under Art. 261 criminal code, aka the blasphemy article. It’s worth noting that she’s of Muslim origin, naturalised, she immigrated as a small child.
But there’s also Art. 261bis (race discrimination and incitement to hatred). A flag of Israel was recently stolen from a synagogue in Basel, and later trampled upon and burned as shown by cctv camera footage. This context probably allows prosecution under art. 261 (blasphemy, theft from the synagogue) as well as art. 261bis(*), the trampling makes rather clear that it’s not about the flag per se but what it represents.
Not all flags are made equal, and context matters. Stealing Israel’s flag from a Migros seems distinct from stealing it from a synagogue. Burning a caricature of Mohammed may well be prosecutable, and definitely trampling on and burning of the Quran. The same applies to Christian objects and symbols, as demonstrated by the prosecution of Sanija Ameti.
Personally, I see no point in those acts, do what you want. But if you’re a foreigner enjoying the country’s safety and hospitality, yet have the audacity to denigrate it in such a fundamental way (Swiss flag, cantonal, municipality, or anything similar) you should directly lose all privileges and need to leave immediately, including after you’ve been naturalised.
(*) art. 261, the part relevant here: “any person who publicly denigrates … a group of persons on the grounds of their race, ethnic origin, religion … in a manner that violates human dignity”