LGBTQ groups are ecstatic that authorities in Switzerland sentenced a man to prison time for calling a journalist a “fat lesbian” in 2021.
French-Swiss writer and commentor Alain Bonnet, who goes by Alain Soral, issued the politically incorrect epithet at journalist Catherine Macherel in a video on Facebook, where he also called her “unhinged.”
He was also sentenced to pay legal fees and a large fine in addition to the jail time over the charges of defamation, discrimination, and incitement to hatred.
Soral criticized Macherel, a journalist for Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures, for being a “queer activist.”
The sentence was based on a law approved by Swiss voters in 2020 that banned discrimination against people on the basis of sexual orientation.
Murial Waeger, the co-director of a lesbian advocacy group, praised the sentence.
“This court decision is an important moment for justice and rights of LGBTQI people in Switzerland,” said Waeger. “The conviction of Alain Soral is a strong signal that homophobic hatred cannot be tolerated in our society.”
Soral’s attorney, Pascal Junod, told the Associated Press that his client was wrongly convicted of a “crime of opinion” and said they would appeal the conviction. He mocked the court for convicting Soral of sinning “against the dogmas of single thought.”
Junod also said that they would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
Soral had been previously convicted numerous times in France for denying the Holocaust, which is a crime in the country. He was sentenced to jail in 2019 over the conviction, and the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism praised the ruling for its “exceptional character” at the time.
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