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Freedom of passions, freedom from speech

By Dominic Green
Published October 6, 2023 9:40am ET
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Freedom of passions, freedom from speech
French-Swiss far-right writer Alain Soral, left, arrives at the courthouse for his appeal trial for homophobia against a journalist, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Wednesday, September 27, 2023. The court ruled that Swiss-French essayist Alain Soral must spend 60-day in prison over a case of discrimination, defamation and incitation to hatred for deriding a newspaper journalist as a “fat lesbian.” | (Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP)

Everyone likes free speech until they’re the one being spoken about. No doubt the Swiss journalist Catherine Macherel was insulted when the French-Swiss racist agitator Alain Soral called her a “fat lesbian” in a Facebook video and said that her work as a “queer activist” showed that she was “unhinged.” But should Soral go to jail and pay thousands of euros in fines, as a Swiss court decided on Oct. 3?

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