Swiss court acquits Jewish man who compared Muslims to Nazis

A Swiss court overturned the hate-incitement conviction of a Jewish musician who on Facebook described Muslims as “the Nazis of today.”

A Basel Appeals Court on Friday acquitted David Klein of the offense for which he was convicted last year after consideration of his apology for words that he wrote about a video showing Arabs assaulting Jews in Jerusalem, and the fact that he is the descendant of Holocaust survivors, the Tachles Jewish weekly reported.

The verdict criticizes David Klein’s statement but cites the context in which it was made to establish that it expresses no call to racist action or hate. The reasoning for acquitting Klein includes reference to the fact that his great-grandparents were murdered in 1943 by the Nazis.

Klein was prosecuted after local media reported about his remark.

Klein told Tachles he was “relieved” and that his remark on Facebook was “confined to the situation depicted” in the video about which he wrote that Muslims are Nazis. It was not “a statement about all Muslims,” he added.