Over more than a decade: Over a dozen criminal and civil proceedings against two perpetrators who have engaged in systematic cyberstalking, pornography, honour-related offences, contact violations, and the illegal publication of intimate data since January 2015. What began with harassing messages and comment section trolling grew into an organized hate campaign with its own blog, hundreds of articles, and pornographic photo montages. The legal response includes a house search, a brief arrest, contact bans, protection orders, binding convictions, and the judicial documentation of connections between the obsessive stalkers and the «obsessive» (quote: Basel-Stadt Criminal Court) Tamedia journalist (not yet final).
A few weeks after the Zug Landammann ceremony, the first harassing messages arrive. An older man – later identified as one of the two main perpetrators – makes unsolicited contact, initially posing as a supporter and offering his alleged legal expertise. What appears at first to be concern turns out to be the beginning of a persecution campaign that would last over a decade.
Perpetrator 1 becomes increasingly demanding and aggressive. Using alternating pseudonyms and his real name, he dominates comment sections in various media, posing as an insider and spreading half-truths. He follows a pattern he has already applied to other public women. He harasses the then Zug cantonal councillor with anonymous troll accounts while simultaneously offering himself as her legal advisor and representative. To third parties, he even claims to be her "lawyer". Perpetrator 2 – a considerably younger man – joins in and begins filing baseless complaints. The use of the legal system as continued stalking, coupled with anonymous posturing on social media. Non-commencements and discontinuations multiply. For a long time, all at state expense. The two stalkers present themselves as poor.
Following persistent harassment, a court issues a communication ban against the first perpetrator. This does not deter him: He continues his activities through third parties and anonymous accounts and is convicted for the first time for violation of an official order (Art. 292 SCC) by penal order. In parallel, he files complaints about extortion and coercion against Spiess-Hegglin; the public prosecutor's office refuses to pursue them.
The harassment reaches a new level: The two perpetrators launch an anonymous, single-issue denunciation blog called "Shameleaks" with over 200 hateful articles, pornographic photo montages, and systematic character assassination. Spiess-Hegglin finds digital forensic traces on the hate blog leading to the older stalker and files a criminal complaint. The public prosecutor's office of See-Oberland opens an investigation. A house search follows, along with police interviews. From seized emails between the perpetrators and other data, the extent of coordination is first documented as court evidence.
The Hinwil District Court issues a contact ban and a protection order against one of the main perpetrators; before this, he is briefly arrested by the cantonal police.
The connections between the stalkers and media professionals are documented. Civil lawsuit for personality violation is filed.
The public prosecutor's office of See-Oberland brings charges against both main perpetrators for pornography (Art. 197 SCC), coercion as stalking (Art. 181 SCC), threats (Art. 180 SCC), multiple defamation, libel, insults, attempted insigation to unauthorized data acquisition, and violation of court orders (Art. 292 SCC). Multiple penal orders are issued for repeated contact violations.
The Pfäffikon District Court convicts both main perpetrators: one for pornography (Art. 197 SCC) and coercion as stalking (Art. 181 SCC), the other for pornography. All honour-related offences – defamation, libel, insults – are discontinued: They have expired due to statute of limitations because the perpetrators dragged out proceedings through constant postponements and procedural tactics over years.
The Zurich High Court confirms the civil judgment against the first main perpetrator as final. The court holds that over 1,500 social media posts and several blog entries systematically written about a person – without direct contact – exceed "every socially customary and tolerable measure" and constitute a continuing violation of personality under Art. 28 CC. This is the first time a Swiss high court in German-speaking Switzerland has established that indirect digital statements about a person can qualify as a stalking method once they reach a certain intensity and volume. The ruling closes a significant gap in civil law protection against cyberstalking and is binding.
The Hinwil District Court rules in the civil case regarding the illegal publication of Shameleaks data in favour of Spiess-Hegglin. At the same time, further penal orders against one of the perpetrators become final – including convictions for multiple defamations on Twitter and violation of the communication ban.
An appeal proceeding is pending at the High Court. Further criminal charges for honour-related offences and violation of court orders (Art. 292 SCC) are pending. The legal review continues.
What began in January 2015 with seemingly harmless messages from a retired man turned out to be the start of a pursuit campaign lasting over a decade, organized in a division of labour. Two main perpetrators – one provided pseudo-legal arguments, the other technical implementation and distribution – jointly operated the "Shameleaks" platform, on which they published over 200 personality-violating articles, including pornographic photo montages, fabricated interviews, and systematic character assassination. In parallel, they maintained a network of fake accounts on Twitter and Facebook that were regularly renamed but could be identified as identical based on the unchanging Twitter ID. Years before the blog, the perpetrators had created an atmosphere of permanent harassment in comment sections, on social media, and through third parties. A compulsory measures court determined that this was "Internet stalking". The fact that this campaign continues to this day despite communication bans, contact bans, a house search, an arrest, and binding convictions makes this one of the best-documented cases of organized cyberstalking in Switzerland.
Why are these cyberstalkers even relevant – two obsessive men who have pursued a single woman for over a decade? Because their case exemplarily shows how digital hate is organized. What appears at first glance to be the isolated activities of two disturbed individuals turns out on closer inspection to be a node in a network where the most diverse actors find themselves in hate and mutually reinforce each other.
The investigations and case files document a direct connection between the convicted stalkers and the journalist Michele Binswanger convicted in the Tamedia complex (not final). Confidential court documents from the ongoing Binswanger proceedings appeared on the blog operated by the stalkers. The journalist, for her part, drew on one of the convicted stalkers as a source for her book and published material on her blog that reached her from people who maintain close contact both with her and with the stalkers. This created a cycle in which each actor referred to the others: The tabloid media provided reporting material and public legitimation. The stalkers picked up this material, enriched it with fabrications and intimate details, and spread it via their blog and dozens of fake accounts. The journalist, in turn, relied on material from the stalkers, gave it the appearance of journalistic respectability, and fed it back into the public media sphere. A woman who had previously gained Spiess-Hegglin's trust provided internal information that further fueled the cycle. An apparent social game in which people found each other who had nothing in common except their shared object of hatred. The escalation cycle between anonymous social media posts and media amplification was systematically played out. It later emerged that the woman who initially gained Spiess-Hegglin's trust as a supposed friend has maintained the closest connections to decision-makers in Switzerland's largest media houses for years.
Digital violence does not work because individual perpetrators are particularly powerful. It works because the Internet provides an infrastructure in which hate can easily be bundled – across social classes, political camps, and motivations. Media campaigns and anonymous incitement interlock, legitimize, and reinforce each other, and can be used to eliminate and decompose individual persons.
In 2020, there existed a private Facebook chat group of women who exchanged information with each other about ongoing proceedings and media coverage. A participant gained Spiess-Hegglin's trust and passed parts of the chat on – to the stalkers, to the journalist convicted in the Tamedia complex (not final), or to both. Spiess-Hegglin disputes the authenticity of the passages attributed to her.
In May 2023 – just days before her own conviction for defamation at the Basel-Stadt criminal court – journalist Michele Binswanger published parts of this chat under the title "Hateleaks" on her specially created blog. The publication served to reverse the narrative: Spiess-Hegglin was to be portrayed as the orchestrator of a smear campaign, the Tagi journalist convicted for intentional lying and knowing misstatement (not final) as the victim. This framing was adopted by various media – including the Tamedia group itself.
The facts tell a different story. The only truly hateful utterances in the chat, which was by no means conceived as a hate group against the Tamedia journalist, did not come from Spiess-Hegglin but from two women who later turned out to be close confidants of the journalist – they were present as companions at her appeal hearing in Basel. These same women had previously been expelled from the association #NetzCourage for actions contrary to its purpose. They have and do exchange information with the convicted stalkers. Whether they deliberately provoked from within to generate usable material against Spiess-Hegglin cannot be conclusively proven – the pattern suggests it.
Characteristic of this complex is the persistence of the perpetrators. Despite police contact bans, criminally enforceable speech bans, and initial convictions, both continued their activities – under new pseudonyms, on new platforms, with undiminished intensity. One perpetrator was convicted multiple times alone for violation of court orders under Art. 292 SCC. This repeat offender status demonstrates that digital violence cannot be stopped by individual sanctions, but only by consistent, long-term legal prosecution on multiple legal levels simultaneously.
Parallel to their stalking activities, the two main perpetrators systematically instrumentalized the criminal justice system against Spiess-Hegglin herself. Between 2015 and 2026, a total of 72 criminal proceedings were opened against Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin – from various sources, including the two stalkers, but also other individuals. The two stalkers account for the largest share: Perpetrator B alone launched over 23 complaints directly, Perpetrator A over 10. Additionally, Perpetrator B acted as representative for at least eight other persons, all of whom filed identical complaints on the same day. The charges ranged from extortion and coercion to false accusation to unfaithful business dealings – and were almost without exception baseless.
The result speaks for itself: Of 72 proceedings, 24 ended with non-commencement (the public prosecutor's office did not pursue the complaint at all), 34 with discontinuation, 7 complaints against this were dismissed, and in the two cases where a hearing actually took place, an acquittal followed. The only result against Spiess-Hegglin in 72 proceedings: a violation for disobedience of an official order – fine CHF 300. This flood of proceedings is no accident and no side aspect of the hate campaign. It is its own instrument of harassment: Each complaint forces a response, binds resources, creates psychological pressure, and causes costs – regardless of whether it is justified or not. The fact that Perpetrator B brought in several prominent, SVP-affiliated legal representatives for individual complaints from 2022 onwards shows the degree of professionalization of this strategy and the politicization of the narrative. The convicted personality violators and stalkers invoked freedom of expression. That their complaints failed changes nothing about their effect as a weapon.
The proceedings required legal tools that scarcely existed in this combination before: De-anonymization via IP addresses and platform information, house search with seizure of digital evidence, police arrest, contact ban, court speech bans under Art. 28a SCC, criminally enforceable communication bans, and finally convictions for pornography (Art. 197 SCC), coercion as stalking (Art. 181 SCC), and systematic violation of court orders (Art. 292 SCC). The fact that in the Shameleaks case all honour-related offences – defamation, libel, insults – expired despite prosecution because the perpetrators delayed proceedings through procedural tactics and alternating sick leaves, is part of the bitter balance sheet. The fact that nevertheless within one year three judgments were rendered against the same perpetrators – both criminal and civil – shows that coordinated cyberstalking is legally actionable today, even if the system offers perpetrators too many opportunities to force expiration.
The most significant civil law judgment in this complex is the Zurich High Court ruling of summer 2024, which is final and binding. It is a precedent decision whose implications extend beyond the individual case. The High Court held that over 1,500 social media posts and several blog entries systematically written about a person – without any direct contact with the victim – constitute a violation of personality under Art. 28 CC once they exceed "every socially customary and tolerable measure". The frequency and intensity of the statements, not the element of direct contact, are the determining factors.
This clarifies a previously open legal question: indirect cyberstalking – posts that are not addressed to the victim but are systematically written about her – is actionable under civil law when it reaches a certain quality and quantity. This is significant for those affected because many perpetrators deliberately avoid direct contact in order to evade the classic definition of stalking. The ruling closes this protection gap at the civil law level. The Swiss consumer magazine Beobachter and criminal defence expert Duri Bonin identified the underlying district court decision as a potential leading case for future cyberstalking proceedings in Switzerland; the High Court has consolidated that character through its confirmation.
Over ten years of legal proceedings – from the first harassment in January 2015 through de-anonymization to binding convictions – document for the first time in Switzerland comprehensively how organized cyberstalking can be legally processed. The Shameleaks civil judgment establishes that operators of anonymous hate platforms are also personally liable. The proceedings thus create a practical blueprint for affected persons, law firms, and law enforcement authorities. At the same time, the case demonstrates what time, financial, and emotional effort is demanded of victims – over a decade of struggle on multiple legal levels simultaneously – and how urgently structural improvements in victim protection against digital violence are needed.