- BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium's
official anti-racism center said on Friday it was preparing legal action
to stop imports of an Italian wine with labels depicting Adolf Hitler and
other leading Nazis.
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- "A picture of Adolf Hitler is in itself too little
(to trigger legal action), but he's also doing the Hitler salute and there
is this message 'One People, One Empire, One Leader'" Ingrid Aendenboom,
spokeswoman for the Center for Equal Opportunities and the Fight against
Racism, told Reuters.
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- "That falls within the framework of the anti-racism
law," she said.
-
- The wine "is apparently a huge success in Italy,"
but the Belgian public was "very sensitive to this kind of thing,"
she said. The wine is sold at Belgian flea markets.
-
- The head of the wine producing company, Andrea Lunardelli,
told German television in September that the labels carrying phrases such
as "Sieg Heil" and "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer"
were made chiefly for the German market.
-
- Its Web site says the labels "remind us of the lives
of celebrated personages of Italian and world political history such as
Che Guevara, Churchill...Hitler, Marx, Mussolini, Napoleon."
-
- The German government asked Italy in September to investigate
whether the labels depicting top Nazis such as Hitler, Hermann Goering
and Heinrich Himmler violated European Union anti-racism rules.
-
- German law strictly forbids the use of Nazi symbols or
insignia, but German tourists were importing the wine from Italy or buying
it on the Internet.
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