There appears to be quite a video game controversy raging in Switzerland.

SCEE president David Reeves hinted as much during an ELSPA meeting with Dr. Tanya Byron two weeks ago: 

This [violent video game] debate goes on in every European country and in Switzerland it’s at the top of the agenda for every political party. It’s a major hot potato…

Longtime GP reader Soldat Louis, who lives in Europe, has helped us fill in the blanks regarding the Swiss video game situation with that timely report:

I’ve just learnt that in Bern, Switzerland, there is a double controversy about video games. First: Roland Näf, a (left-wing) representative wants to ban violent video games totally (he started his crusade in March).

Second: there was a game-related double murder last week. Well, when I say “game-related”, it’s just considering the murderer’s friends declared to the press that he was a fan of [unspecified] “violent games”…

Soldat Louis additionally

provided a link to the Not Quite Here blog, where a March entry offers more details on what politician Roland Näf has gotten up to regarding games:

European customer electronics retailer Media Markt was sued by a Swiss politician for selling John Woo’s Stranglehold. To be more precise, Roland Näf sued the manager of a local branch of Media Markt…

Now, the reason Mr. Näf is doing that is that he wants to see how effective that law is when used against video games. He states that Swiss law isn’t strict abundant in that respect…

So Mr. Näf wants to ban [violent] video games from being produced or sold at all… Actually, he already tried to change the law but was turned down by the parliament. They said that the law as it is now was good adequate and that no connection amoung video games and violent minors was evident.

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