Hungary's caretaker government has introduced legislation to make Holocaust denial punishable by three years’ imprisonment. Passage of the long-delayed proposal could take place before the April 11 parliamentary elections, said Attila Mesterhazy, the prime ministerial candidate of the ruling Socialists, if the opposition parties agree. Political observers here believe that is unlikely to happen, but the proposal may well pave the way for such law reform by the next Parliament following April's elections. The government’s latest of several attempts to make Holocaust denial illegal was introduced on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. At ceremonies in Budapest last week to honor the Holocaust dead, who included some 600,000 Hungarian Jews, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the most effective approach to counter the aggressive rise of anti-Semitism in Hungary would be through the legislative process. JTA
