18 GRA STIFTUNG GEGEN RASSISMUS UND ANTISEMITISMUS v. SWITZERLAND JUDGMENT public may claim particular protection of his or her right to private life, the same is not true of public figures (see Minelli v. Switzerland (dec.), no. 14991/02, 14 June 2005, and Petrenco v. Moldova, no. 20928/05, § 55, 30 March 2010). For them, the limits of critical comment are wider as they are inevitably and knowingly exposed to public scrutiny and must therefore display a particularly high degree of tolerance (see Ayhan Erdoğan v. Turkey, no. 39656/03, § 25, 13 January 2009, and Kuliś v. Poland, no. 15601/02, § 47, 18 March 2008). 63. The Government argued that that principle had to be applied in a different way in the present case because B.K. was only 21 at the time he gave the critical speech. He was at the beginning of his political career and was unknown at national level. Those circumstances justified a proper level of protection for his personality rights and reputation. 64. The Court does not share the Government’s view in this respect. B.K. had been elected president of a local branch of the youth wing of a major political party in Switzerland. The speech cited by the applicant organisation was clearly political and was made in the framework of support for his party’s political goals, which at that time were to promote the popular initiative against the construction of minarets. 65. Consequently, B.K. had willingly exposed himself to public scrutiny by stating his political views and therefore had to show a higher degree of tolerance towards potential criticism of his statements by persons or organisations which did not share his views. (γ) Content, form and consequences of the publication 66. In the present case the applicant reproduced B.K.’s speech, which had already been published on the political party’s own website, but called it “verbal racism”. 67. The Federal Supreme Court held that classifying B.K.’s speech as “verbal racism” had been a mixed value judgment which had had no factual basis because the speech had not been racist. In particular, the Federal Supreme Court held that for the average reader B.K.’s statements did not come across as belittling Muslims, but were merely defending Christianity as the Swiss guiding culture (“schweizerische Leitkultur”; see paragraph 13 above). 68. At this point the Court reiterates that a distinction needs to be made between statements of fact and value judgments in that, while the existence of facts can be demonstrated, the truth of value judgments is not susceptible of proof. The requirement to prove the truth of a value judgment is impossible to fulfil and infringes freedom of opinion itself, which is a fundamental part of the right secured by Article 10 (see, for example, Lingens v. Austria, 8 July 1986, § 46, Series A no. 103, and Prager and Oberschlick v. Austria (no. 1), 23 May 1991, § 63, Series A no. 204). The classification of a statement as a fact or as a value judgment is a matter