BRUSSELS – The Centre for Equality and Anti-Racism has said it is preparing legal action in a bid to ban the import of Italian wine carrying labels depicting Adolf Hitler and leading Nazis.

“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, spokesperson for the Centre, told Reuters.

The wine producer’s website advertises the product as reminding people of celebrated figures from Italian and international history, such as Marx, Mussolini, Hitler, Napoleon, Churchill and Che Guevara.

The company’s director, Andrea Lunardelli, told German television that the labels carrying pictures of Hitler and phrases such as ‘Sieg Heil’ were chiefly intended for the German market.

The bottles are currently on sale in Belgium at various markets.

Earlier, the German government asked Italian authorities to investigate whether the controversial labelling was against EU laws.

German law forbids the use of Nazi symbolism on any products. The wine bottles depicting figures such as Hitler, Himmler and Goering were being imported by private buyers over the internet.

[Copyright Expatica News 2003]

Subject: Belgian news