Vegan activist takes Switzerland to human rights court over prison diet

Man says state prison failed to provide adequate diet, in appeal joined by former psychiatric patient

Switzerland has been challenged at the European court of human rights over a failure to provide adequate vegan diets to a prisoner and a patient at the psychiatric ward of a hospital, in a case that could lead to veganism being interpreted as a protected characteristic under the right of freedom of conscience across geographic Europe.

The court, which is part of the Council of Europe and not the EU, this week formally asked its member state Switzerland to respond to the two complaints that Swiss state institutions had failed to provide a totally vegan diet to two applicants while they were in prison and in a hospital psychiatric unit respectively.