People’s Party officials plan to appeal racism verdict

Martin Baltisser, leader of the conservative right People’s Party, and his deputy Silvia Bär say their decision to appeal is a struggle for freedom of expression Keystone

Two top Swiss People’s Party officials found guilty of racial discrimination over an anti-immigration vote campaign say they plan to appeal the recent decision. 

Martin Baltisser, leader of the conservative right People’s Party, and his deputy Silvia Bär said on Friday they intend to appeal to Bern’s Supreme Court against a recent verdict of racial discrimination against the two for an advertising campaign featuring two Swiss attacked by knife-wielding immigrants from Kosovo. 

The People’s Party campaign, with a slogan that read “Kosovars are cutting the Swiss apart!” and the true story of two Swiss attacked with knives in 2011, were released in the print media during the run-up to the February 9, 2014 vote and also appeared in 2011 on the party’s website.

On April 30 a Bern regional court said Baltisser and Bär had created a hostile attitude towards Kosovars through the advertisement. They were both given a conditional fine.

Baltisser told Swiss public radio, SRF, on Friday their decision to appeal was a struggle for freedom of expression: “It must be possible to present the things as they actually happened.”

The advertisement in question, which ran in Swiss newspapers, tells the story of two Swiss attacked by Kosovars with a knife under the headline “Kosovars are cutting Swiss apart!” The incident that the ad refers to occurred in 2011. SRF online

In their defence the two officials claimed the party did not wish to put all Kosovars in the same basket but wanted to simply evoke the incident that occurred at Interlaken. The party did not intend to discriminate but wanted to simply denounce criminal acts, they said.

According to the anti-racism criminal law provisions of 1995, racial discrimination is a criminal offence (Article 261 of the Swiss penal code). Its prohibitions are explicit: incitements to hatred and discrimination; dissemination of discriminatory materials; denial or trivialisation of genocide and other crimes against humanity (eg. denial of the Holocaust); public discrimination.