GRA STIFTUNG GEGEN RASSISMUS UND ANTISEMITISMUS v. SWITZERLAND JUDGMENT 11 B. Merits 1. The parties’ submissions (a) The applicant 30. The applicant submitted that the Federal Supreme Court had wrongly found the expression “verbal racism” to be a mixed value judgment which required proof of veracity. In any event, considering the socio-political context, the description of B.K.’s speech as an act of “verbal racism” could not be regarded as devoid of any factual basis. 31. The Federal Supreme Court found that because his statements were labelled as “verbal racism”, B.K was implicitly being accused of a criminal offence under Article 261bis of the Swiss Criminal Code. However, in the applicant organisation’s view, the criminal offence of “racial discrimination” could not be equated with the term “racism”. The concept of racism was highly complex and often disputed and a brief reference by the Federal Supreme Court to a dictionary entry could not sufficiently explain its complexity. 32. The applicant organisation regularly wrote about racist incidents that did not fall within the meaning of a criminal offence. Its website clearly explained its wide understanding of the term “racism” and detailed the contents of the category “verbal racism” so that readers were well aware of what to expect. In the applicant organisation’s view, prohibiting the term “racism” from being used to describe certain kinds of behaviour or statements if they did not amount to a criminal offence within the meaning of Article 261bis of the Criminal Code would be highly damaging to democratic society and in complete contradiction to various human rights standards. 33. In its role of “public watchdog”, the applicant organisation argued that it deserved the same protection as the press and that the margin of appreciation of the respondent State should therefore be restricted. Moreover, it had exercised the degree of discretion required from all journalistic publications in the impugned Internet entry and had refrained from provocation. 34. The applicant stressed that the initiative against the construction of minarets had given rise to heated discussions in Switzerland. In its view, there was no doubt that that political initiative had been racist and discriminatory. That view had been confirmed by a number of renowned experts and bodies, which had held that the initiative was “racist” in nature, or at least racist-related. 35. The applicant organisation further argued that B.K., in his role as a politician, had to accept that he was more likely to become the subject of criticism than the average person, irrespective of his young age. Rejecting the Government’s argument in that regard, the applicant organisation stated