The Office of the Attorney General announced on Tuesday that it would not appeal against the Federal Criminal Court’s ruling from last July.
The activists’ lawyers reacted happily to the decision. “This is an important victory for freedom of expression, but one that should not obscure the direct attack on freedom of expression that this trial represented,” they said in a statement.
Overall, the case not only leaves a high bill for the state, but also and above all a feeling of waste due to disproportionate criminal action, the statement noted. The case resulted in freedom of expression suffering a serious blow.
On July 27, the criminal court acquitted the three young men, aged 21, 23 and 32, of charges of inciting them to violate military service obligations. The costs of the case were awarded to the federal government and the three activists were compensated for their legal fees.
The defendants were initially sentenced to conditional fines by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office because they had published an article entitled “The Army, I Boycott” on the climate strike’s website in May 2020. “Out of ethics, morality, ecological and social responsibility,” they called for people to refuse military service.
An Swiss People’s Party politician later filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office against unknown persons on suspicion of inciting a violation of military service obligations.
More
More
The Swiss army: your questions answered
This content was published on
A top Swiss army spokesman answers readers’ questions on the role of the forces.
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Popular Stories
More
Life & Aging
Zurich: how the world capital of housing shortages is tackling the problem
In Switzerland more people are being referred to electrical therapies or psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Are there similar approaches where you live?
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.