Nouvelliste crossword case: general acquittal
Keystone-SDA
The setter of a crossword that appeared in Swiss newspaper Le Nouvelliste and the person responsible for distributing it have been acquitted by the Sion district court. They had been charged with defaming the Valais section of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
In its verdict on Monday, the court found that the two men had merely expressed an opinion, which is protected by freedom of expression. Nor did the judge find them guilty of offences against honour or slander.
A clue in the Valais paper on November 18, 2023, was: “Swiss political party – racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-ecological, anti-poor, nationalist.” The answer: UDC (the French abbreviation for the Swiss People’s Party).
The Valais section of the People’s Party took exception to this and demanded, and received, an apology from Le Nouvelliste.
+ Is the Swiss People’s Party far-right?
However, on November 24, 2023, the Valais section of the People’s Party lodged a complaint against the crossword setter, and on January 27, 2024, it lodged another criminal complaint against the person in charge of the crossword.
The procedure was extended on May 15, 2024, following a police hearing of the defendants, who had referred to the Swiss People’s Party as “fascist” and “supremacist”.
Translated from French by DeepL/ts
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
