Top Swiss court rules that calling someone 'foreign swine' isn't racist
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Switzerland's top court has ruled that calling someone "foreign swine" or "filthy asylum seeker" may be insulting, but it's not racist.
A Swiss policeman had appealed his conviction for racial discrimination for hurling the slurs at an Algerian man who was arrested on suspicion of theft at a 2007 jewelry fair in Basel.
The Federal Tribunal said Friday that the unnamed officer's actions were out of order and unacceptable.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But the judges ruled that because the words swine and filthy are "widely used expressions of dissatisfaction or dislike" in the German language, they don't constitute racist attacks against a person's human dignity.
The judges sent the case back to a lower court to decide whether the unnamed officer is guilty of insulting behavior, a lesser crime.