Austria has proposed a 21st century solution to the Amstetten incest and abuse scandal: a global PR campaign to restore its battered reputation.

The country once considered an oasis of Alpine calm has been badly shaken by the case of Elisabeth Fritzl, imprisoned in a cellar by her own father for 24 years and forced to bear him seven children. The land of Edelweiss had suddenly become, as one marketing executive put it, "the land of dungeons".

Alfred Gusenbauer, the Austrian Chancellor, said today that his government was planning a campaign to demonstrate that Josef Fritzl's actions were not representative of his country.

In his first comments on the case, he told reporters in Vienna: “It’s not Austria that is the perpetrator. This is an unfathomable criminal case, but also an isolated case.

Commentary: a society that nurtures secrets

What society would accept the probability of three children being left on the doorstep of Josef F and grant him adoption?

Multimedia

• Pictures: house of horror

BACKGROUND

• Why are child abuse scandals happening in Austria?

• Analysis: damage caused may never be healed

• Brutal double-life of Josef Fritzl emerges

• Police search other Fritzl properties in Austria

Related Links

• Austrian police probe Fritzl 'murder link'

• Kampusch - Fritzls should stay in cellar

• Great evil took place in that cellar

“We won’t allow the whole country to be held hostage by one man."

He was backed by President Heinz Fischer, who told the daily Kleine Zeitung: "There is definitely nothing fundamentally Austrian in this case. Monstrosities, that human beings are capable of, manifest themselves everywhere."

In a statement released after a Cabinet meeting, Mr Gusenbauer conceded that that Austria’s reputation had been hurt by the horrific events in the cellar of the Fritzl family home in the small town of Amstette, 60 miles west of Vienna.

Global coverage of the case has exceeded even that given to Natasha Kampusch, the young Austrian woman held in a Vienna basement for eight years until her escape in August 2006.

Featuring in that coverage have been newspaper commentaries asking how such a prosperous and visibly stable country can produce such horrific abuses and why, despite a previous conviction for sexual assault, Mr Fritzl's actions never raised any suspicions.

Mr Gusenbauer said that an international campaign of slander was under way, adding: "We cannot accept that. There is no ’Amstetten case’, there is no ’Austrian case’. There is only an isolated case."

Karin Cwrtila of the Austrian Marketing Association (OGM) agreed that the country's reputation was being hurt. “Everyone is writing: Austria - the ’Land of the Dungeons'," she said. "Of course it doesn’t do any good to Austria’s image."

The Chancellor said that the Government would "react with all means at its disposal" to help the victims, which include six children born in the cellar. A seventh, whose twin brother is still alive, died shortly after birth.

He added that the Government planned to hire consultants to get the campaign under way and would use “all technical and professional means available to rectify” Austria’s image.

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