Elie Wiesel returns Romanian honor in protest

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel has returned a decoration he received in 2002 from Romania's president after the same award was presented to two nationalist politicians. Wiesel sent a letter to President Ion Iliescu saying he had read with "disappointment and sadness" that Iliescu had decided to honor Corneliu Vadim Tudor, head of the Greater Romania Party, and another party member, both of whom were "known anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers." Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, received the award in 2002 after visiting his home city of Sighetu Marmatiei.

Iliescu said Thursday that he had not singled out Tudor, but given the decorations to a large group of lawmakers, and Tudor was among them. In a letter he sent to Wiesel on Wednesday, Tudor claimed he never denied the Holocaust, and said he was surprised by Wiesel's refusal to keep the award. "Romanians may ask then why didn't you return the Nobel Prize for Peace you received on the reason that after you received it in 1986, Yasser Arafat received it in 1994?" Tudor said in the letter.