Due to a complaint, climate activists have been summoned by the federal prosecutor’s office. The Vaud climate strike movement had called for a “military strike”. For the Federal Council, this originally fell under freedom of expression. The criminal complaint of an SVP politician brought the turning point.
May 2019: Thousands of students demonstrate in Lausanne during a climate strike.
“L’armée, je boycotte.” The call for conscientious objection under this title has been available on the website of the Vaud climate strike section since May 11, 2020. “The climate strike is calling for a military strike,” the text reads. The climate activists declared that they no longer agreed to pay the military levies for ethical, moral, ecological and social reasons. As a result, they called for community service instead of military service. The “institution” is environmentally harmful, violent, discriminatory, nationalistic, expensive and useless. The army must either be radically changed or abolished. Based on this call, the federal prosecutor’s office summoned three climate activists to a hearing next August.
Parliament has also dealt with the text on several occasions. In a question time at the beginning of June 2020, the Valais SVP National Councilor Jean-Luc Addor wanted to know from the Federal Council whether he had filed a complaint or was planning to do so. The Federal Council denied and justified the rejection with freedom of expression. “The purpose of criminal law is to prevent crimes and misdemeanors. It is not intended to restrict freedom of expression or to prevent unwanted opinion.” The authority responsible for the Federal Council’s response was the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS).
Jean Luc Addor.
As a result, Addor filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office on suspicion of being asked to violate military duty. The relevant Article 276 of the Criminal Code states that “anyone who publicly encourages disobedience to military orders, violation of service, refusal to serve or escape, or who induces a conscript to commit such an act, shall be punished with imprisonment for up to three years or a fine”.
new twist
With the criminal complaint, the story took a new turn. A breach of this Article 276 is an official offence. Since this is also a “political offence”, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office must be authorized by the Federal Council to prosecute. The decision rests with the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP), which can submit cases of particular importance to the Federal Council. However, the case mentioned does not fall into this category. As a rule, the authorization is granted, it can only be refused to protect the interests of the state, as the Federal Council wrote in its response to an interpellation by the Green Group. As late as 1992 and 2006, the Federal Council refused to authorize a criminal investigation when the group Switzerland without an Army (GSoA) called for conscientious objection to military service. Since then, however, the legal provisions have changed, claims the EJPD. In the present case, it approved the criminal investigation. The federal prosecutor’s office then opened criminal proceedings in February 2021.
Ins, Bern, 1966: demonstration of sympathy for the high school teacher Pierre Annen, who on this day has to start his 81-day prison term in the Witzwil institution for refusal to work.
On May 26, 2021, the proceedings led to house searches and interrogations by the Federal Police of three Lausanne climate activists, one of whom was a member of the Young Socialists. According to a recent article published in the French-speaking Swiss newspapers “Tribune de Genève” and “24 heures” based on the investigation report, the activists’ smartphones and computers were confiscated, unlocked and scanned with a cutting-edge technology. Among other things, the Israeli software company Cellebrite, which specializes in monitoring mobile devices, was commissioned to do so. On its website, it advertises that it is known for helping the FBI crack into locked iPhones. According to the two newspapers, the political talks of the climate strike and the Vaud Young Socialists can also be found in the investigation report. The SP then criticized an unacceptable violation of political freedom on Twitter, which was reminiscent of the fichen scandal.
Advance of the SP
The Vaud SP national councilor Ada Marra will submit an interpellation in the autumn session in September. Among other things, the SP wants to know how many parties were investigated in this way. How the Federal Council justifies a violation of political freedom on this scale and whether the data collected by the investigators that has nothing to do with the case will be destroyed. Obtaining the private and confidential data from discussions of a party’s board of directors is not harmless, the SP claims.
Samuel Bendahan.
From the point of view of the SP National Councilor Samuel Bendahan, the climate activists have only published a communiqué in which they called for community service. In Switzerland there is a right to community service. However, the federal government used funds as if they were terrorists. Lausanne lawyer Gaspard Genton, defending one of the activists, is also convinced that the call for the climate strike is protected by freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Accordingly, there was no criminal offence. Protecting freedom of expression is one of the country’s interests. Genton considers it scandalous that the federal government has resorted to measures such as house searches. Such police measures are extremely intimidating and have a chilling effect on the exercise of political rights. Genton hopes someone has the courage to drop the case. According to the federal prosecutor’s hearing of the activists in August, this is one of three possibilities. The Office of the Attorney General can also issue penal orders or file a complaint with the Federal Criminal Court.