Customs office employee sacked for racism
The Federal Customs Office has dismissed an employee who was embroiled in a scandal involving the dissemination of racist comments on the Internet.
The office announced on Monday that 56-year-old Hanspeter Sutter had lost his job.
Sutter was caught red-handed by the Swiss tabloid paper "Blick" last year, when he entered the Swiss Internet chatroom, Swisstalk, under the pseudonym "Admiral", and began disseminating racist comments.
While the man's actions took place at home, Swiss legislation says that the behaviour of a civil servant outside the work place must be representative of the values of the Swiss state.
The Customs Office's move comes as Switzerland grapples with apparently increasing right-wing extremist activity in the country.
swissinfo with agencies
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
Newsletters
Contributions under this article have been turned off. 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.