A Romanian far-right MP threatened Wednesday to send journalists to forced labour camps, accusing them of having sold out to the West over the reporting of his party's weekend ballot success.
The ultra-nationalist Romania Mare (PRM) party came second in ballots Sunday, and its head Corneliu Vadim Tudor will face leftist former president Ion Iliescu in run-off presidential ballots on December 10.
"We will have to finish the Danube-Bucharest canal one day and other building projects started before 1989. The PRM will thereby give journalists some work," said PRM deputy Anghel Stanciu in the northeastern city of Iasi.
Talking of "forced labour camps," he accused journalists of "selling out to the West."
Numerous intellectuals and opponents of the then communist regime were sent to forced labour camps in the 1950s. Thousands died working on a canal linking the Danube to the Black Sea.
Stanciu, a philosophy professor, also accused journalists of "gross manipulation" of information about the alleged danger of the far-right.
Meanwhile ballot results showed that the anti-semitic head of Romania's football league, Dumitru Dragomir, has been elected an MP for the PRM party in the southern district of Valcea.
Dragomir was investigated last year by football's ruling body FIFA over charges that he took part in "anti-semitic demonstrations." He was warned that he would face sanctions if he engaged in any such activities in the future.
He also runs a weekly publication, "Atac la persoana" (personal attack), which has published, beneath a yellow star, a list of key Romanian Jews and a Sionist document which was used as propaganda by the Nazis – BUCHAREST (AFP)
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