Swiss Writer and Noted Holocaust Denier Given 60-Day Jail Sentence for Calling Journalist ‘Fat Lesbian’

A controversial far-right writer and commentator received a 60-day jail sentence in Switzerland after he called a journalist a "fat lesbian."

French-Swiss polemicist Alain Bonnet, who goes by Alain Soral, was sentenced on Monday after he was found guilty of defamation, discrimination, and incitement to hatred, per ABC News.

Along with the two-month sentence, Soral was ordered to pay legal fees and fines totaling thousands of Swiss francs. Soral was previously jailed in France in 2019 for denying the Holocaust.

In a Facebook video from two years ago, Soral verbally attacked Catherine Macherel, a journalist for Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures. According to Swiss public broadcaster RTS, Soral called Macherel a "fat lesbian" and said she was "unhinged" because she was a "queer activist."

The sentence, coming as another man in Britain faces jail time for mocking a boy who died of cancer, illustrates how even non-authoritarian countries that do not have First Amendment-like speech protections — whether the UK, France, or Switzerland — have a much lower bar to clear in defamation cases.

LGBTQ+ groups, meanwhile, are celebrating Soral's jail time as a victory for the implementation of a 2020 measure approved by Swiss voters that makes discriminating against people on the basis of sexual orientation illegal.

"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. "The conviction of Alain Soral is a strong signal that homophobic hatred cannot be tolerated in our society.”