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 (dollars) in addition to the time behind bars

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 LGBTQI people in Switzerland,” said Murial Waeger, co-director of the lesbian activist group LOS, in a statement[…]
In an email Tuesday to The Associated Press, Pascal Junod, a lawyer for Soral, mockingly blasted the conviction for a “crime of opinion” and said the case aimed to probe whether a person had “sinned against the dogmas of single thought”[…]
Waeger said the verdict represented a milestone in the application of a measure approved by Swiss voters in 2020 that made it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation

Soral was convicted repeatedly in France and sentenced to jail time in 2019 for denying the Holocaust