Arnie wiped out on the web
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has been zapped from the official websites of his Austria birthplace of Graz.
It happened 24-hours after city officials removed his name from a stadium at his request. He had also ordered the city to stop using his name for promotional purposes.
His demands came after local councillors had attacked his refusal to stop the execution in the US earlier this month of former gang leader and convicted murderer Stanley Williams.
After Williams’ December 13 execution triggered a storm in Europe, and calls mounted for the stadium to be stripped of Schwarzenegger’s name, the governor opted for a pre-emptive strike.
A week ago, he sent a letter to local officials ordering his name to be removed and said he was returning an ornate ring of honour that Graz officials gave him in 1999.
Capital punishment is illegal in Schwarzenegger’s native Austria, where many people consider it barbaric. Opposition had run especially high in Graz, whose official slogan is ”City of Human Rights.”
Schwarzenegger was born in 1947 in the village of Thal just outside Graz, where he began his bodybuilding career. He emigrated to the US in 1968 and became a naturalized US citizen in 1984, but has retained his Austrian citizenship.
