"On Thursday, Vienna's regional court fined independent German publishing house Verbrecher Verlag 1,500 (1,300) for publishing a book in which Milo Rau alleged that Heinz-Christian Strache, the former leader of the Freedom party (FPO), once sang a song with the line: We'll manage the seventh million, a reference to the approximately 6 million European Jews murdered at the hands of the Nazi regime."
"Rau, who this summer made global headlines with a verbatim staging of the Gisele Pelicot trial, conceded that the statement was a factual error. But he alleged that the defamation suit against his publisher fit into a broader pattern of nationalist parties using legal means to intimidate critical voices in the arts. What we are seeing is far-right parties using the arsenal provided by democracy in order to destroy it, he told the Guardian."
Milo Rau's publisher Verbrecher Verlag was fined and ordered to withdraw a book after an allegation that Heinz-Christian Strache sang a line referencing a "seventh million" proved incorrect. The fined passage linked the line to the roughly six million Jews murdered by the Nazi regime. Rau acknowledged the factual error but framed the legal action as part of a pattern of nationalist parties using legal tools to intimidate artistic critics. Strache plans further defamation action against Rau personally for repeating the claim. The passage originated in a Berlin speech reprinted in a collection later withdrawn from sale.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]