Russia threatens Swiss newspaper with legal action for publishing image of Putin with a clown nose
- Russia’s Swiss embassy threatened a newspaper with legal action over an image it published
- The Neue Zürcher Zeitung included an image of Putin as a clown in an article on memes
Russian officials threatened a Swiss newspaper with a legal action after it published an image depicting President Vladimir Putin as a clown.
Zurich newspaper the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, published the piece titled Between Superheroes and Villains: The Power of Memes in the Ukraine War, which suggested viral images played a part in discussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The lead image featured Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as the Iron Man next to Putin with a clown nose and colourful face paint.
Its intent appears to have been to illustrate the type of imagery used, rather than to argue that the newspaper or its writers consider Putin to be a clown.
Russia’s embassy in Switzerland responded with a letter to the newspaper’s editor, describing itself as “extremely outraged” by the image.
The letter argued that freedom of speech was not an excuse to publish “insults and fakes.”