Alain Soral, a Swiss writer and political commentator has been arrested and fined for calling a journalist a ‘fat lesbian’.
The French-Swiss polemicist, Alain Bonnet, who goes by the nom de plume Alain Soral, was sentenced by the Lausanne court for the crimes of discrimination, defamation, and incitement to hatred this week.
In a Facebook post two years ago, Soral had lashed out at a journalist, Catherine Macherel, for Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures.
According to swiss public broadcaster RTS, he said Macherel’s work as a ‘queer activist’ meant she was ‘unhinged’ and called her a ‘fat lesbian’.
Alain Soral was therefore, charged to a 60-day time behind bars, and to pay legal fees and fines totalling thousands of Swiss francs.
The decision in the wake of the court’s ruling was praised by LGBTQ+ rights advocates.
Murial Waeger, a co-director of the lesbian activist group LOS, in a statement said;
‘This court decision is an important moment for justice and rights of LGBTQI people in Switzerland.’
She continued, ‘the conviction of Alain Soral is a strong signal that homophobic hatred cannot be tolerated in our society.’
The lawyer for Soral, Pascal Junod, said the case aimed to probe whether a person had ‘sinned against the dogmas of single thought,’
He therefore, blasted the conviction for a ‘crime of opinion.’
The lawyer stated, “Soral will appeal to the Swiss federal court and ‘if necessary’ to the European Court of Human Rights.”
