Excerpt:
State prosecutors are calling for a two-year suspended prison sentence for three members of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ISSC) who are facing trial on charges of having produced illegal propaganda for the terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda.
In a case that has raised concerns about possible infringements on journalistic practice, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) says the trio broke Swiss laws that forbid support for groups such as Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) by interviewing and publishing online an interview with Saudi cleric Abdullah al-Muhaysini carried out in Syria in 2015.
While interviewing radical Islamicists is not illegal, prosecutors say Naim Cherni, a young filmmaker from Bern and head of the ISSC's cultural production unit, together with the organisation's media spokesperson Abdel Azziz Qaasim Illi and ISSC president Nicolas Blancho contravened journalistic principles in the publication of Cherni's interview with al-Muhaysini.