Hungary plans to penalize Holocaust denial

BUDAPEST, Hungary, April 20 (UPI) -- Hungary's Cabinet education and culture minister asked deputies in Parliament to pass a bill to make denying the Holocaust punishable by law.

Istvan Hiller, the education and culture minister, told the lawmakers Monday the Holocaust denial is a crime in many European countries, adding there are questions about which there is no room for compromise, the Hungarian news agency MTI reported.

Hiller said a democratic duty is to condemn Holocaust denial.

Hundreds of far-right activists, many of them sporting uniforms similar to Nazi ones, demonstrated "against Zionist rule" and in favor of Holocaust denial in the streets of Budapest Saturday.

On Sunday, Ildiko Lendvai, leader of the Hungarian Socialist party, said the Saturday demonstrators were Nazis. She said Holocaust denial should not happen in any European country without punishment, MTI reported.