“This is a new form of escalation”

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Just a few weeks ago, the Russian state apparatus threatened a local journalist through his representative office in Bern. In this case, it was a NZZ journalist who was told how people in Russia would react to his article. Accordingly, upon entry, the journalist risks a fine, forced labor or several years in prison, the embassy in Bern threatened in a statement.

Now Minister of Justice Elisabeth Baume-Schneider (59) publicly responded to this incident. “What we experienced last week is a new kind of escalation,” she said in her speech at the Swiss Press Awards ceremony in Bern. When a foreign state publicly threatens a Swiss journalist with imprisonment and hard labor through its embassy in Bern, it not only violates the principles of diplomacy. “It pushes a boundary, it marks a dangerous precedent,” Baume-Schneider said, according to the text of the speech.

Ambassador has already been summoned

What makes this incident particularly serious is that a publicly expressed threat never only affects the threatened person. “But always everyone else. All those who are in the same place, in the same field, in the same war, are trying to find and write down the truth.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) had previously summoned Russian ambassador Sergei Garmonin. “We expect the Russian embassy to respect our laws and our constitutionally guaranteed rights – including freedom of the press,” Baume-Schneider said Friday evening.

At the same time, however, the Jurassic woman also pointed out that Swiss laws also restricted the media “in some cases in a questionable way”. As an example, she mentioned that it is a criminal offense in Switzerland to publish information that falls under the confidentiality of bank customers. (she)

Source:Blick