Valais: Nine Wolf Protectors Convicted Over Facebook Post
Nine convictions in Valais following a “Defend the Wolf” post: even an emoji reaction can be considered participation in defamation in a court of law.
The Valais public prosecutor's office issued criminal orders on April 1, 2026, against nine wolf protectors, typically in the form of suspended daily fines.
The trigger was a publication on the Facebook page “Defend the Wolf” on Christmas Eve 2023, directed against SVP cantonal councillor Grégory Logean. Not only the authors of the post were convicted, but also individuals who had merely reacted to it with a “like” or an emoji. The case brings into focus the legally sensitive question of whether a simple Facebook like already constitutes punishable endorsement of defamatory content.
The post in question from December 24, 2023
At the center of the proceedings is a publication that appeared on Christmas Eve 2023 on the Facebook page of “Defend the Wolf.” The page is operated by the Bernese association “Defend The Wolf,” which advocates for the protection of wolves in Switzerland. Rhône FM, the first outlet to make the case public, cited the following passages from the post:
“You are criminals and will one day have to answer for your actions before a court.”
“Do not forget that you are just as vulnerable as other animal species.”
“You will be hunted to your last hiding place.”
A further comment from the same page, accompanied by a photo, added: “At this point in time, this is the only solution to protect the wolf in Switzerland.” The targets were hobby hunters, game wardens, and politicians who support shooting orders against wolves. The threatening rhetoric inverts the language of hobby hunting, turning the hobby hunters themselves into the hunted.
The trigger for the criminal complaint
Even more serious was a comment that appeared beneath the post on the same page and was documented by Rhône FM as early as 2024. It stated, in effect, that it would be best if "Father Logean were also liquidated." This wording was likely the central reason why Logean filed a criminal complaint in early February 2024. The canton subsequently questioned thirteen individuals.
The Legal Turn
The Valais public prosecutor's office issued nine penalty orders. The charges: defamation, slander, and threats, assigned differently depending on the individual. Of the original thirteen accused, nine were convicted; the penalty orders can still be challenged by objection.
Logean told Rhône FM he was “satisfied with the legal turn of events.” The SVP politician spoke of a “necessary signal” from the justice system, showing that people “cannot do whatever they want from behind their keyboard and screen.” Logean is president of the «Association romande pour la régulation des grands prédateurs» (ARRGP), which advocates for increased “regulation” of predators — meaning their culling.
The Like as a Gray Area
Legally significant is the fact that at least one of the convicted individuals neither wrote nor shared the post, but merely reacted to it with an emoji. Their defense attorney, Grégoire Rey, acknowledged to Rhône FM that the post itself had clearly crossed “the threshold of criminal law.” Nevertheless, he is contesting the conviction and sees it as a “fascinating textbook case.” The key question, according to Rey: “Does merely agreeing with something already constitute participation in what was said?”
A precedent exists from 2020: In the landmark ruling BGE 146 IV 23 (6B_1114/2018 of January 29, 2020), the Federal Supreme Court established that ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ measurably increase the visibility of a defamatory post and can therefore constitute the dissemination of slander under Art. 173 No. 1 para. 2 of the Swiss Criminal Code. At the same time, the court emphasized that a like is ‘fundamentally open to interpretation’: it is not automatically equivalent to consent in legal terms, but is instead addressed through the concept of further dissemination. Whether a criminally punishable act of dissemination has actually occurred must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Context: Wolf Policy in Valais
This case is emblematic of the growing hardening of positions between the wolf protection movement and the hobby hunting lobby in western Switzerland. The canton of Valais pursues the most aggressive wolf policy in Switzerland: according to KORA and the cantonal wildlife, hunting, and fisheries authority (DJFW), eleven Valais packs existed in 2025, ten of them with confirmed reproduction, comprising 75 identified individuals. During the 2025/26 period, a total of 27 wolves were killed in Valais: three by individual shooting orders and 24 under the proactive regulation program from September 1, 2025 to January 31, 2026, including seven juveniles under the baseline regulation. State Councillor Christophe Darbellay stated the political goal of reducing the number of packs from eleven to three.
Parallel to the proceedings against the nine wolf protection activists, the association «Defend The Wolf» has itself filed criminal complaints against commentators who had insulted it and its activists online. The mutual mobilization of the justice system shows just how far polarization has advanced.
What is beyond dispute: the tone on social media has radicalized in both directions. On one side, there are threats and calls to pursue hobby hunters “to their last hiding place.” On the other, hate messages targeting wolf protectors, game wardens carrying out cullings, and scientists alike. The case in Valais is a legal test case for both sides.
