Romanian newspaper hits back at British 'louts and drunks'

The Sun's unique brand of invective has claimed many victims over the years. Lofty targets from Jacques Delors to the Argentinian Junta have all been stung by the power of its scorn.

But when Britain's biggest selling daily newspaper ran a story warning against the alleged threat posed by the influx of Romanian immigrants infected with HIV next year, it may well have met its match.

Dashing to the defence of its fellow countrymen has come Libertatea, Romania's biggest selling newspaper famed for its scantily clad Page Five girls.

It devoted much of yesterday's issue to hitting back at the Currant Bun, suggesting the British newspaper train its eye a little closer to home if it wants to find evidence of wrongdoing.

It accuses the British of exporting paedophilia, drunkenness and hooliganism - a threat it says is far more serious than that posed by Romanians when the country officially joins the European Union in January. It goes on to lampoon the notion that "rapists, muggers, card forgers, whores and pimps will storm into Trafalgar Square" in 2007.

In the editorial it blasts "too perfidious Albion" insisting the old colonial label is still apt. It also calls on Tony Blair to stand up against the Press for peddling myths demonising a nation which has committed troops to serve alongside British forces in Iraq.

"Starting about two months ago various UK publications, spearheaded by The Sun, flung upon Romanian citizens the sort of abjection which is hard-to-imagine," the editorial said.

"Romania is presented as a cursed land, the Sodom and Gomorrah which will spill crime, disease and misfortune into England."

It also used the edition to launch a campaign to highlight the epidemic of British paedophiles being countered by the Romanian authorities - an issue already highlighted by UK children's charities.

"We are talking about children whose souls have been mutilated by the animal desires of some men for whom the British traditionalist spirit is reduced to Stone Age instincts," it said.

"It doesn't seem to matter that Scotland Yard statistics do not place Romanians at the top of the crime league, likewise that the tens of thousands of HIV-infected have got the virus from Asian or African immigrants or passed it on among themselves," it adds.

The paper helpfully includes the e-mail address and phone number for The Sun, encouraging readers to get in touch to vent their spleen. The Sun, which accompanied its HIV story with an editorial headlined "Killer Plagues", declined to comment but said it had not been inundated with angry calls.

Although they may share a passion for pin-ups and forceful rhetoric, the papers are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. The Romanian newspaper, which is involved in a fierce circulation battle with rival Averea, made headlines in its own right this year when it was forced to sack a journalist who made up a story claiming a couple had named their child after the Yahoo search engine. The paper said he had gone so far as to forge the birth certificate.

In the summer, amid mass walkouts by staff at the paper, models formed the Page Five Girls Association and demanded they be moved forward to page three.