- BUCHAREST - The upper house
of the Romanian parliament on Thursday adopted a bill that makes denying
the Holocaust a crime punishable with between six months to five years
in prison.
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- Lawmakers in the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favour
of the bill that was first put to parliament in 2002 but repeatedly delayed
as political parties argued about its wording and the length of the prison
terms.
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- It now includes a definition of the Holocaust as "the
systematic, state-sanctioned persecution and annihilation of Europe's Jews
by Nazi Germany, its allies and collaborators between 1933 and 1945."
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- The definition was inserted because Romanian politicians
have in the past sought to minimise the role of the country, which was
an ally of Nazi Germany until changing sides in 1944, in the war-time persecution
of Jews.
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- The former Social-Democrat government sparked outrage
in 2003 when it denied that the Holocaust had also been carried out on
Romanian soil between 1940 and 1945.
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- The bill, which still has to be approved by the Chamber
of Deputies, also bans racist and xenophobic organisations and symbols,
as well as fascist propaganda and an allegiance to "people guilty
of crimes against humanity."
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- The last provision is considered to be aimed at the lingering
personality cult around the pro-Nazi war-time premier Ion Antonescu.
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- He is blamed for the death of 270,000 Romanian Jews during
the war but still considered a hero by many for winning back Romanian territory
annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940.
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