LGBTQ+ groups on Tuesday hailed the 60-day jail sentence a court in Switzerland gave to a writer and commentator for deriding a journalist as a “fat lesbian” and other critical remarks.
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The Lausanne court sentenced French-Swiss polemicist Alain Bonnet, who goes by Alain Soral, for the crimes of defamation, discrimination and incitement to hatred on Monday. He was ordered to pay legal fees and fines totaling thousands of Swiss francs in addition to the time behind bars.
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Holocaust denier Alain Soral, a Swiss-French far-right activist, arrives in a court in Lausanne, Switzerland
(Photo: EPA/LAURENT GILLIERON)
Soral lashed out at Catherine Macherel, a journalist for Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures, in a Facebook video two years ago. He called her a “fat lesbian” and said Macherel’s work as a “queer activist” meant she was “unhinged,” according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS.
“This court decision is an important moment for justice and rights of LGBTQ people in Switzerland,” Murial Waeger, co-director of the lesbian activist group LOS, said in a statement. “The conviction of Alain Soral is a strong signal that homophobic hatred cannot be tolerated in our society.”
A lawyer for Soral, Pascal Junod, did not reply to a request from The Associated Press on Tuesday about whether his client planned to appeal.
Waeger said the verdict represented a milestone in the application of a measure approved by Swiss voters in 2020 that made
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Holocaust denier Alain Soral, a Swiss-French far-right activist, arrives with his supporters to a court in Lausanne, Switzerland
(Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP)
it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation.
Soral is a well-known far-right activist who celebrated his 65th birthday on Monday, the day he was convicted. He has already become famous in the past due to a number of extreme and antisemitic statements he made, and he has been convicted repeatedly in France - about 20 times - among other things for crimes of defamation and incitement to hatred. Sorel is known, among other things, for his collaboration with the antisemitic comedian Dieudonne, and they cofounded the Anti-Zionist Party, which is currently inactive.
In 2019, he was sentenced by a French court to one year in prison for Holocaust denial, which is a crime in France, after he published a cartoon of a man reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin, who is holding a lamp with a Star of David in the background; the cartoon reads: "Holocaust, where are you?" The same year, he moved to Lausanne, the French-speaking canton of southwestern Switzerland, and apparently has not yet served this prison sentence.