Jewish group hails Argentina expulsion of bishop

Agence France Presse, France

Leading Jewish lobby group the World Jewish Congress on Friday hailed Argentina for ordering the expulsion of a Holocaust-denying British bishop. "The decision is commendable, even more so because the government of Argentina makes it crystal clear that Holocaust deniers are not welcome in the country," World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder said in a statement.

Argentina's Interior Minister Florencio Randazo announced Thursday that ultra-conservative bishop Richard Williamson, who said publicly last month that the Nazis did not kill Jews in gas chambers in World War II, has been ordered to leave the country within 10 days.

Williamson has been at the center of a raging controversy after saying on Swedish television last month: "There was not one Jew killed by the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies."

Days before he made the controversial statement, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the ex-communication of Williamson and three other bishops, in an attempt by the Vatican to heal a split with traditionalists who reject reforms made in the early 1960s.

The 68-year-old bishop has refused to recant his statement, despite the Vatican's demands. In an interview last week with German magazine Der Spiegel, Williamson said he would reexamine the historical evidence of the Nazi gas chambers -- but again made no sign that he had changed his views.

The Argentine government said Williamson's beliefs "deeply shocked Argentine society, the Jewish people and all of humanity, to deny a proven historical truth."

Lauder expressed hope that other countries would follow Argentina's example and act against anti-Semitism and Holocaust deniers or those who deny the extent of the cruelty wreaked on Europe's 11 million Jews by Nazi Germany.

Some six million Jews died during World War II, in combat, of starvation and disease, or in Nazi death camps.