20 GRA STIFTUNG GEGEN RASSISMUS UND ANTISEMITISMUS v. SWITZERLAND JUDGMENT Court’s view, this in itself would suggest that the latter was something negative from which the former needed protection and that B.K.’s speech was thus not merely limited to the “demonstration of a difference”. 73. For the foregoing reasons, the Court considers that it cannot be said that classifying B.K.’s speech as “verbal racism” when it supported an initiative which had already been described by various organisations as discriminatory, xenophobic or racist, could be regarded as devoid of any factual basis. 74. The Court further observes that the applicant never suggested that B.K.’s statements fell within the scope of the criminal offence of racial discrimination under Article 261bis of the Swiss Criminal Code. In fact, in its arguments before the national authorities and the Court (see paragraph 32 above), the applicant organisation stressed the need to be able to describe an individual’s statement as racist without necessarily implying criminal liability. 75. What is more, in the Court’s view, the impugned description cannot be understood as a gratuitous personal attack on or insult to B.K. The applicant organisation did not refer to his private or family life, but to the manner in which his political speech had been perceived. As already stated, B.K., as a young politician expressing his view publicly on a very sensitive topic, must have known that his speech might cause a critical reaction among his political opponents. 76. In view of the foregoing, the impugned categorisation of B.K.’s statement as “verbal racism” on the applicant organisation’s website could hardly be said to have had harmful consequences for his private or professional life (see, a contrario, Cicad, cited above, § 56). (δ) Severity of the sanction 77. Finally, the nature and severity of the sanction imposed on an applicant are also factors to be taken into account when assessing the proportionality of an interference. The domestic courts ordered the applicant organisation to remove the impugned article from its website and to publish the conclusion of the second-instance court. It also had to pay CHF 3,335 plus tax in court fees and reimburse B.K.’s legal costs of CHF 3,830 plus tax. 78. In the Court’s view, the above sanction, however mild, may have had a “chilling effect” on the exercise of the applicant organisation’s freedom of expression as it may have discouraged it from pursuing its statutory aims and criticising political statements and policies in the future (see, mutatis mutandis, Lewandowska-Malec v. Poland, no. 39660/07, § 70, 18 September 2012).