These words are not to be written within the jurisdiction of the Emmental-Oberaargau regional court in the Swiss canton of Bern: «If LBGTQI people will be disinterred after 200 years, all you can find from the skeletons are men and women, everything else is a mental illness promoted by the school curriculum» (my translation from the original German*).

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I write these words in spite, because one should be at liberty to write them. It is called the freedom of opinion and expression – an old hat that’s still fitting. In the case at point it clashes with «zero tolerance» for speech that discriminates minorities – hatred, scorn and glee, but also ridicule, sass and taunt. It is a matter of judgment. My preference is freedom. I side with judge Oliver Wendell Homes who set the limit of free speech at «clear and present danger. The one where someone yelling «fire» in a full theater creates a panic.

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For the sentence quoted above Emanuel Brünisholz, a musical instrument maker in Burgdorf was charged, indicted and sentenced to a fine worth 10 days of his income or 500 Swiss Francs. He refused to pay and went to prison for 10 days.  From 2 to 12 December 2025, he resided in the regional penitentiary in Burgdorf, on the second, intermediate floor between the petty and the serious cases. Among the prisoners in his ward was a condemned murderer and child abuser.

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Emanuel (transparency: we know each other) wrote the incriminated sentence in a comment to a Facebook-post of the Swiss politician Andreas Glarner. Shortly thereafter, 10 people pressed charges with several cantonal (state) jurisdictions for disparagement and violation of human dignity of the LGBTWI segment of the population. «discrimination and appeal to hatred» according to article 261 of Swiss Criminal Code. Emanuel says, some cantonal prosecutors counseled the plaintiffs against pressing charges. 5 withdrew, 5 persisted. He knows their names from the court documents, but he says not to be allowed to share them. One of them is a teacher «from the area of Bern, two other journalists.What followed were summons, questioning and verdict: The Facebook comment publicly belittled the «population group of LGBT(Q)I individuals». The price was the 500 francs transformed into imprisonment as mentioned above (plus administrative costs).

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I refrain from qualifying the incriminated speech, from a contextualization of the politician Glarner or an assessment of the felon – from the pirouettes media are wont to perform when reporting on tiresome cases. The heart of this matter is: This is no judicial farce but shameful, petty nonsense. This verdict should never have been. The prosecutor and the judge that are responsible did a disservice to the increasingly fragile appreciation of the rule of law and the meaningfulness of political order.

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Where is the instance wo exhorts them to apply common sense?

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*the incriminated sentence reads in the original German as: «Wenn man die LGBTQI nach 200 Jahren ausgräbt wird man anhand der Skelette nur Mann und Frau finden alles andere ist ne Psychische Krankheit die durch den Lehrplan hochgezogen wurde!»