I've lived in Switzerland for 8 years, as part of a 20 year tour of Europe; I'm originally from Sydney, Australia.
I had heard stories about Swiss police being "tough but fair" however I never imagined that the home of a major branch of the United Nations could be such a human rights abuser.
In Switzerland, they have preventative detention, which means that if the police suspect you of a crime, they can lock you up in prison. You don't go before a judge, the public prosecutor decides, and so the police can throw anyone they like in prison this way.
The thing is, you have no recourse. You are allowed to see a state provided lawyer, not your own lawyer, which means that lawyer is paid by the police. You see how this works? The state provided lawyer is mere window dressing; he's really a policeman, too.
You see this lawyer and then they hold you incommunicado for 48 hours before you see a judge. They don't need any proof at all. The problem is that torture is not criminalised in Switzerland. It's illegal but not pursued automatically like say murder, so if the police torture you, you have to pay all the costs of fighting them.
Also, according to a 2015 UN report, the penalties for torture are "not dissuasive" ie a slap on the wrist.
So while you are a suspect, the Swiss police can do whatever they want to you. My lawyer said I was not allowed to use the toilet or have a drink of water if the police didn't want me to. Wow! I lasted 9 hours of interrogation before seeing a toilet.
In order to avoid the humiliation of literally shitting myself and being left in my own filth, I had to waive my rights to an interpreter, to my own lawyer; I had to agree to blood, urine, DNA and hair samples bring taken. The police insisted they needed to take close up photos of my penis "to prove your innocence". When I refused, and said the police were abusing my rights, one of them replied "We will waterboard you if you don't".
How can one go from reporting a suicide, with an alibi, to being threatened with torture and actually sexually humiliated to confess?
Swiss police are violent sadomasochists, ironic they would accuse me of being that very thing; they clearly lack the intelligence to understand the concept of "psychological transfer"
Update Friday 16 June, 2017
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