A court in Appenzell Outer-Rhodes has deemed that a man caught hiking in the nude more than a year ago was indeed indecent.
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On Thursday he was found guilty of gross indecency. He now faces a SFr100 ($103) fine plus procedural costs amounting to SFr3,300.
The story began in October 2009, when a woman reported the sight of a naked man wandering near a picnic area and a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts. The authorities fined him SFr100, but the 46-year-old naturist refused to pay.
The matter first came to court in May 2010; the man admitted that he had been hiking in the nude for two years, but insisted that he had not been behaving indecently. He was acquitted, so the prosecution decided to take the case to a higher court – which concluded that it was the duty of the local authorities to uphold public morality.
Following a wave of naturist hikers in recent years, canton Appenzell Inner-Rhodes was the first canton to ban naked rambling. The official fine for the practice is SFr200. Two cases are currently pending there.
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Appenzell clamps down on nudist hikers
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Citizens of Appenzell Inner Rhodes on Sunday voted to ban nude hiking in public. The traditional open-air assembly in Appenzell decided overwhelmingly to clamp down on a sudden influx of nudists, particularly from nearby Germany. The government of Appenzell Inner Rhodes recommended approval of the ban saying the local population was opposed to the “indecent”…
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The cantonal court ruled that the charge was baseless and lifted the SFr100 ($87) fine that he had refused to pay. The state will cover the legal fees amounting to around SFr870. The 46 year old was reported to police by a woman who saw him walking naked in the mountains in October. He is…
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Simon Enzler, a clothed cabaret artist from eastern Switzerland who uses the topic in his act, talks to swissinfo about what the average Appenzeller makes of it all and wonders where the nudist police are going to stick the SFr200 ($175) fines. In a world first, on April 26 the traditional open-air assembly in Appenzell,…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.