ThoseVote in Geneva –I live there, I pay there: was the Cologny badge hacked?
The town believes that its coat of arms is illegally reproduced on the poster of the Labor Party and requires their abolition.
Posted today at 11:00 am
Geneva, April 22, 2025, Promenade de Saint-Antoine. Posters for the votes of May 18, including that of the Labor Party opposing “I live there, I pay”
Laurent Guiraud/Tamedia
Subscribe now and take advantage of the audio reading function.
The town does not appreciate the campaign poster of the Labor Party Against the initiative “I live there, I pay”.
Via Lawyer François Bellanger, she put the party to immediately remove “the stylized badge of The town of COLOGNY appearing on its posters ”.
In a letter, the lawyer specifies that the poster represents a pirate head, on the bottom of which appear stylized the coat of arms of Cologny. Proof of this is similar color codes and stylized lighthouse imitating the silver column, according to the lawyer. He denounces an obvious will to create confusion in the eyes of the public.
According to Tobia Schnebli, “the white lighthouse not dated on our poster” (Editor’s note: left) “is clearly distinguished from the silver column of official coat of arms”.
DR
Especially since the poster echoes the recently prohibited demonstration of “hill for pirates” at the Film Festival and International Human Rights Forum. The goal? Present Cologny “as a haunt of pirates, and this in an extremely negative way”. Enough to affect his image.
The lawyer recalls that the law prohibits the use of public coat of arms on any print relating to an electoral operation and disseminated at the sight of the public.
“Nothing illegal”
No confusion possible and nothing illegal, replied Tobia Schnebli, president of the PDT. “The white lighthouse not dated on our poster is clearly distinguished from the silver column of official coat of arms.”
The Swiss, Geneva fiscal policy and certain rich Geneva municipalities can be qualified, by caricaturing it, as tax piracy, according to the president. Either attract accumulated and/or looted riches worldwide. This opinion is protected by freedom of expression, adds Tobia Schnebli.
To avoid judicial approaches to the municipality, the party nevertheless proposes to cover the badge on its 180 posters by a banner “censorship desired by the town of Colagny”. What will the municipality do? François Bellanger has not yet responded to our request.
On May 18, the people were brought to vote on the initiative of the UDC which proposed that the municipal tax, taken partly instead of domicile and partly at the workplace, are only at the place of domicile. Opponents (left and unions) refuse the initiative as its counter-project.
“Geneva policy”Large issues, elections, votes, life of parties and debates: with the newsletter “Geneva political”, find the news of political life every week in the canton and the communes.
Other newslettersConnect
Golds Armasios is a journalist at the Geneva section since August 2022 and covers cantonal policy in particular.More info
Did you find an error? Please report it to us.
1 comment
