(JTA) — A Swiss court upheld a lower tribunal’s conviction of a former politician who called for a Kristallnacht against Muslims.
The High Court of Zurich this week upheld a district court’s ruling against Alexander Muller of the conservative Swiss People’s Party, or SVP. The court fined Muller $1,880 for writing in 2012 on Twitter, “Maybe we need another Kristallnacht … this time for mosques,” the Tachles Swiss Jewish weekly reported.
Muller was in charge of two Zurich districts for his party, but resigned from all his official posts following media coverage of his statement. He was charged with inciting to violence.
Kristallnacht, or “the night of broken glass,” took place on Nov. 9-10, 1938, when mobs throughout Germany and parts of Austria killed nearly 100 Jews, ransacked and burned more than 1,000 synagogues, destroyed more than 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses, and vandalized Jewish cemeteries and schools.
Some 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps during Kristallnacht, which historians view as the watershed moment in Nazi Germany’s adoption of violence as a policy against Jews and other minorities.
The Swiss People’s Party attracted international attention in 2009 when it initiated a constitutional amendment banning the construction of new mosque minarets.
Muller did not indicate whether he intends to appeal.
