A Swiss writer has been fined and sentenced to 60 days in prison for a speech crime that's made international headlines.
While Alain Bonnet is a controversial figure, in this instance, he was sentenced for defamation, discrimination, and incitement to hatred for calling journalist Catherine Macherel a “fat lesbian” in a Facebook video two years ago, Fox News Digital reports.
This won’t be the first time he’s served a prison sentence. He was previously jailed in France over his Holocaust denials, a crime in the country.
The Franco-Swiss writer had initially been convicted of defamation at the first instance in 2022, and received a day's fine. However, the Vaud public prosecutor's office lodged an appeal and won the case at the end of last week's appeal.
The sentence handed down by the cantonal court amounts to 60 days' imprisonment, said Vincent Derouand, a spokesperson for the prosecutor's office, on Monday, confirming a report by Swiss public radio RTS. The essayist, who celebrated his 65th birthday on Monday, can still appeal to the Federal Court.
Soral, whose real name is Alain Bonnet, was on trial for comments he made about a journalist from La Tribune de Genève and 24 heures. After she wrote an article in 2021 that was not to his liking, Soral posted a video online in which he called the journalist a "fat lesbian" and a "queer activist", implying that the latter term meant "degenerate".
Repeat offender
According to the public prosecutor's office, these comments are not just defamatory. "These are not just words; they are messages. Mr. Soral has hatred and contempt for homosexuals," said Eric Kaltenrieder, the public prosecutor.
Kaltenrieder had asked for three months' imprisonment as part of a "penal logic" to "dissuade the defendant from re-offending", since Soral had already been convicted on some 20 occasions in France, largely for offences of provocation to hatred, defamation and anti-Semitic insult. (Swissinfo)
Though it's shocking to Americans, this type of "intolerance and repression" is already in the U.S. on some college campuses, Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson told Fox News Digital.
"The problem with punishing 'hate' speech is, who gets to decide what is hate speech? Free speech then becomes subject to the whims of the people with power," Jacobson said. "Europe is just a few years ahead of us, and will be our future if we are not careful."
