Switzerland Today
Hello from Bern!
Will Roger Federer, now just a few weeks shy of his 40th birthday, ever play at Wimbledon again, following his defeat in the quarterfinals last night? That’s the question on many people’s lips today, and one that the tennis star himself said he couldn’t answer.
But Swiss sports enthusiasts on social media have more than Federer on their minds. After Tokyo officials announced there will be no spectators at the upcoming summer Olympics, armchair pundits naturally turned their attention to Wembley Stadium in London, which will be at 75% capacity (60,000 fans) for Sunday’s Euro Cup final match-up between England and Italy. But never mind the risks of catching the Delta variant in the stands – which team will you be rooting for?
In the News: Swiss holiday-makers are breathing a sigh of relief today, after the European Commission announced that the Swiss Covid certificate will be recognised as equivalent to the EU Covid pass.
- The Swiss document, which confirms the holder has been fully vaccinated, has tested negative or has recovered from the disease, will be accepted in all EU countries starting July 9. The move should also make it easier for EU travellers to enter Switzerland.
- The National Commission for the Prevention of Torture has criticised migration authorities for the use of handcuffs and other restraints during repatriation flights. The Commission’s report came as the Swiss government attempts to get parliament’s approval for a policy forcing deportees to take Covid-19 tests – a move that refugee organisations say would be a violation of human rights.
- The notorious French comedian Dieudonné has been found guilty of racial discrimination by a court in Geneva for statements he made during a show in Geneva and the nearby town of Nyon in 2019. The statements included one in which he denied that gas chambers used to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust ever existed. The comedian was sentenced to a fine of 180 days at CHF170 per day.
Culture Corner: Under the Cannes sun, French director François Ozon has presented his latest filmExternal link on a decidedly dark subject: assisted suicide.
In “Tout s’est bien passé” (Everything went fine), an ailing man convinces his two grown daughters to contact a Swiss assisted dying organisation to make arrangements for his final trip – to the shores of Lake Geneva, for a death on his own terms.
Speaking after the screening at the world’s most prestigious film festival, Ozon (pictured above with actors including Sophie Marceau) said that initially he had to get over his own fear of the taboo subject, Swiss public radio RTS reported.
“We had to emphasise the comedy in the situation,” he said. “I didn’t want to be weighed down by the subject.”
An attempt to pass legislation on euthanasia failed in France this past spring. Here in Switzerland, over 1,200 people ended their lives last year using the services of EXIT, a Swiss assisted dying organisation.
Deep Dive: One person who thought a lot about a good death is the late Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, the Swiss-American psychiatrist most famous for her seminal 1969 book, On Death and Dying.
A Zurich native who later made Arizona her home, Kübler-Ross would have turned 95 today. In her book she popularised the theory that people suffering from a terminal illness go through five emotional stagesExternal link: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally, acceptance.
In a way, Kübler-Ross was well ahead of her time in thinking about how to make dying more humane. Decades after the publication of her book, the issue of palliative care is critical, as many countries deal with a growing elderly population. Medical professionals, but also social workers and counsellors, are increasingly coming together to provide better comfort – both physical and spiritual – to the dying and their loved ones.
Society is also starting to think differently about how to die, with recent research for example showing that many people would choose to die at home, if they could.
More recently, Covid-19 has shed light on the level of preparedness in care homes for dealing with epidemics, as high numbers of residents lost their lives to the disease at the height of the pandemic.
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