June 29



AUSTRIA:

Vienna city council lifts immunity for politician who made Nazi jibe


The Vienna city council on Wednesday lifted the immunity of a politician
who suggested that Nazi gas chambers were found in Poland, but not
anywhere else in the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler.

The council voted unanimously to strip John Gudenus, a legislator in
Austria's upper house of parliament, of protection from prosecution for
his remarks. Gudenus could now face prosecution under a law that prohibits
people from trying to diminish, deny or justify the Holocaust.

Ingrid Luttenberger, a spokeswoman for Vienna's Mayor Michael Haeupl, said
the vote sends a message that such remarks will not be tolerated in
Austria.

"There is no space in the room for someone who says, ooh, I'm not so sure
(about the Holocaust)," she said.

The Vienna council can lift Gudenus' immunity because, like the councils
in Austria's eight other provinces, it selects members for the upper house
of parliament. The legislators in the largely powerless body are supposed
to safeguard provincial interests.

Critics have pressured Gudenus to resign since he declared in a television
interview in April that the existence of gas chambers should be "seriously
debated." In a later interview, he amended the remarks to say that "there
were gas chambers, though not in the Third Reich but in Poland."

(source: Associated Press)