Stalking will now be a criminal offence in Switzerland

Stalking will now be a criminal offence in Switzerland

Stalking will now be a criminal offence in Switzerland Keystone-SDA

Listen to the article Listening the article Toggle language selector Select your language Close English (US)

English (British) Generated with artificial intelligence. Close Share

Stalking will now be clearly punishable in Switzerland. The Swiss parliament agreed on Thursday to include obsessive harassment in the Criminal Code.

Keystone-SDA Other language: 1 Français fr Le “stalking” sera désormais pénalement punissable en Suisse Original Read more: Le “stalking” sera désormais pénalement punissable en Suisse

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The Senate unanimously approved the conciliation proposal that went its way. The House of Representatives did the same on Wednesday, putting its fist in its pocket after a lengthy disagreement over how stalking should be prosecuted.

The parliamentarians wanted to prosecute the perpetrators of this offence automatically when it occurs in a marital relationship, where it is most common. Victims of obsessive stalking will have to lodge a complaint regardless of the case, as desired by the Senate and federal government.

Parliamentarian Philippe Nantermod told the committee on Wednesday that the argument that the victim’s full cooperation is needed to prove the offence committed was unanimously accepted.

What is your opinion? Join the debate:

How we work We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone. If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch