"Slasher advertisement": Federal Court confirms convictions

The advertisement portrayed Kosovars as an ethnic group in such a way that they were more violent than other foreigners and therefore had no right to stay in Switzerland. This is how the average reader would have understood the advertisement, according to the majority of the criminal law division of the Federal Supreme Court.

The advertisement thus created a mood against this ethnic group. The advertisement should be considered as a whole. Therefore, the complainants' objection that the advertisement had taken up an individual case that had actually occurred did not apply. The decision was along party lines - the two SVP judges were defeated by the three other judges.

In March 2016, the Bern High Court found Baltisser and Bär guilty of racial discrimination for publishing the advertisement as part of the 2011 campaign for the mass immigration initiative. They were sentenced in accordance with paragraph 1 (incitement to hatred or discrimination) to conditional fines of 45 daily rates of CHF 300 and CHF 220 respectively. The High Court held that the advertisement was a generalization. It could not be understood in any other way than that all Kosovars were slashers. An entire ethnic group was being disparaged and the claim violated human dignity. The SVP cadre could therefore not invoke freedom of expression.

The defense lawyers of the two SVP cadres argued in court that the poster depicted a specific case - namely an attack on a Swiss wrestler in Interlaken. Baltisser and Bär applied to the Federal Supreme Court for an acquittal.

A botched start

The public prosecutor's office in Bern found it difficult to investigate the advertisement. It discontinued the proceedings twice. However, the High Court overturned the corresponding decisions and sent the case back for further investigation. Two Kosovars had filed a complaint as private plaintiffs against the public prosecutor's decisions to discontinue the case. It was not until December that the latter finally brought charges against Baltisser and Bär. The criminal prosecution authorities in Bern had already been forced by the Federal Criminal Court to conduct the investigation. Prior to this, the Bernese and Zurich judiciaries had assigned responsibility to each other.

Caution with publishing houses

The advertisement was published on the SVP website on August 19, 2011. The advertisement also appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the St. Galler Tagblatt on August 25 of the same year. Various publishing houses refused to publish the advertisement because they considered it to be racist. Those responsible for the advertisement agreed to change the headline to "Kosovar slashes Swiss". The advertisement was not objected to in this form.

The French ("Des Kosovars poignardent un Suisse!") and Italian versions of the headline ("Dei Kosovari pugnalano uno Svizzero!") did not lead to any legal repercussions either. The act of violence, which was the motive for the advertisement, resulted in a conviction. The man from Kosovo, who dangerously injured a Swiss man with a knife in August 2011, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment for attempted intentional homicide. (SDA)