The key facts

  • The ICA upheld four complaints against RTS commentary on Adam Edelman by a 5:4 vote
  • The regulator found the commentator had called for the athlete's exclusion over his political views
  • RTS removed the clip; a written justification of the decision will be published later

Regulator finds violation of the prohibition on discrimination

Switzerland's Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television (ICA) announced on Friday that it had upheld four complaints against commentary by the French-language public broadcaster RTS during the run of Israeli bobsledder Adam Edelman at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. According to AFP, the decision was adopted by five votes to four — a minimal majority, reflecting a split within the nine-member panel.

What exactly happened on air

During the live broadcast of the Israeli team's run on February 16, the RTS2 commentator, according to the ICA's findings, spent the entire run discussing Edelman's social media statements about the war in Gaza. The commentator said that the athlete's statements supporting Israel's strikes on the Gaza Strip — where, according to figures cited in the publication, more than 70,000 people were killed and most of the infrastructure destroyed — should have been grounds for barring him from the Games. The majority of the authority's members concluded that the commentary, which was apparently prepared in advance, implied that the Israeli athlete should not have been allowed to compete at the Olympics because of his political views, and that it carried a stigmatizing, and therefore discriminatory, message — unlike the 25 other athletes competing that day.

Reaction and next steps

Edelman himself at the time called the commentary a 'diatribe' and said he attached no importance to it. The Israeli Embassy in Switzerland expressed outrage at what it called a 'blatant abuse' and demanded decisive action and a clear apology. RTS removed the clip from its website. The ICA will later publish a written justification of the decision, specifying the requested measures: as a rule, when a violation is found, the broadcaster is ordered to take 'measures to prevent further violations' and report on them. The authority's decision can be appealed directly to the Swiss Federal Court.