NEWS IN AUSTRIA

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 137, 6 December 1935, Page 5

NEWS IN AUSTRIA

AGENCY HEAD ARRESTED

A decision of greatest importance to all foreign newspapers represented in Austria was handed down recently when Ladislaus Benes, editor of the American-European Press Service, was sentenced to five days' imprisonment and was ordered to be expelled from the country for "publishing alarming and untrue rumours calculated to damage the Austrian State" (telegraphs J. G. R. Gedye). The case was the first attempt to extend the suppression of a free Press—a suppression long in force for Austrian newspapers—to foreign correspondents.

If the decision is upheld it means the beginning of the end of Vienna as a news centre for newspapers of democratic countries. On the breakup of the Austrian Empire in 1918 there was competition among the new capitals to attract foreign correspondents, since obviously a major bureau could not be established in every capital. Prague made special efforts in this direction. Vienna, however, became the centre because in what was then its easy-going atmosphere journalists had liberty both in collecting and transmitting news—a liberty they could not be sure of in the newer capital. The decision, which marks the first offensive by the Austrian Chancellor's Press Bureau against foreign correspondents' liberties, has changed all that. ALWAYS SPECIFIED. Mr. Benes, who served the "New York Times" and other leading American and British newspapers, was arrested as a result of the necessary and useful service he performed of acquainting himself with various reports current in Vienna, in addition to supplying various items of cabled information from the Balkan countries and informing his subscribers what was being said in political circles. It was for these correspondent subscribers to investigate further the alleged facts of rumours—which he always specified as such, giving the sources where known—and to send them abroad or dismiss them as unfounded. The Court's decision made it absolutely clear that such work in Austria is a crime to be punished by a criminal sentence and, far worse, in Mr. Benes's case by deportation, which ruins his career. It was beside the ! point, the Judge made abundantly clear, ■ that Mr. Benes had expressly declared—and as the testimony of many correspondents, including the"New York Times" correspondent, established—he had always specified doubtful items as mere reports. The i mere telephoning of reports "damaging to the Austrian State" to another journalist was held to constitute "publication," despite the fact that the wording of the law seems to imply that I publication means an-announcement by i placard or public speech.

I That is what will make the work of foreign journalists ■in Vienna virtually impossible unless they are prepared to risk imprisonment and expulsion, for it was declared by Baron Haertz, a high official in the Press Department called, as a witness, that such reports might always get back [ from foreign papers to Austria and "cause alarm" in the country, even if they were expressly designated by a correspondent as controversial or false. The defence counsel's argument that Colonel Walter Adam, the Government's Commissar for Propaganda, and Government newspapers frequently committed this very offence by broadcasting Nazi rumours while describing them as such—the actual offence alleged against Mr. Benes—was ignored.

The public prosecutor especially attacked the ideas of "journalistic honour" and "journalistic duty," declaring these could not be recognised if they conflicted with the Austrian Press Law of the moment.

Perhaps the worst feature of the case for representatives of free foreign newspapers was that no direct evidence was submitted against Mr. Benes. The Court accepted a statement by a detective of the political police that "information was laid" against Mr. Benes by a person whom he declined to name or bring to Court for examination. This means that any police spy, informer, telephone tapper or the manipulator of the secret-police dictaphone in the Austrian Post Office can make such allegations as he pleases against a reputable journalist, who then may be arrested, tried, imprisoned, and expelled without ever seeing his secret accuser or hearing his allegations. The new Austria has thereby put back the clock to the days of |Metternich and his system of spies and informers.

Mr. Benes gave notice of appeal, pending which, although he had already been in prison more than a week, he was detained in custody. In view of the gravity of the situation created for the Press, it was decided immediately by the AngloAmerican Press Association in Vienna, embodying all the British and American correspondents here, to ask through diplomatic channels that Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg receive a deputation of its members.