Residents head for Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland after Russia launches invasion of their country
Continue reading...Category Archives: Poland
More Polish opposition figures found to have been targeted by Pegasus spyware
Analysis by Amnesty International linked them to Pegasus Project leak of more than 50,000 phone numbers
The use of intrusive spyware by members of the European Union is expected to face new scrutiny following revelations that the mobile phones of two more Polish citizens with close links to an opposition senator were targeted by a client of NSO Group, according to security experts.
Forensic analysis by Amnesty International found that both Magdalena Łośko, the former assistant to Polish senator Krzysztof Brejza, and Brejza’s father, Ryszard Brejza, received text messages in 2019 that researchers said were technically consistent with spyware attacks by clients of NSO Group using Pegasus.
Continue reading...EU close to launching committee of inquiry into Pegasus spyware
Approval for rare move expected after evidence government critics in Hungary and Poland were targeted
The European parliament is preparing to launch a committee of inquiry into the Pegasus spyware scandal after evidence emerged of government critics in Poland and Hungary being targeted with the surveillance software.
The cross-party body will seek testimony from member states’ intelligence services, elected politicians and senior officials, with a previous inquiry into alleged European facilitation of CIA “black sites” providing a model.
Continue reading...In limbo: the refugees left on the Belarusian-Polish border – a photo essay
Offered a route into Europe by the Lukashenko regime in Belarus, thousands of asylum seekers are now stranded on the EU’s frontier
By Lorenzo Tondo. Photographs by Alessio Mamo
On 13 August last year, a villager in Ostrówka, in the east of central Poland, posted two pictures on Facebook featuring groups of men, women and children walking through the cornfields with bags on their backs.
They were families from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraqi Kurdistan, and they were among the first asylum seekers to enter the country from Belarus. The post was accompanied by the following short text: “In the heat of day through wheat, at night through corn, they sneak through, they wander, just to get to the west. Great politics and slight refugees leave their print on the fields near Ostrówka.”
The makeshift shelter of a Syrian family with small children in the forest near Narewka, Poland
Continue reading...US troops arrive in Poland as Russia adds to forces at Ukraine border – video
The US has ordered about 3,000 extra troops to bolster Nato’s eastern flank in Poland and Romania.
Russia has denied planning to invade Ukraine but has tens of thousands of troops near its neighbour’s borders
Continue reading...From eastern Europe we watch Ukraine in fear. Its fate could decide the continent’s future
Past trauma means we worry about Russia reclaiming its cold war sphere of influence and that the west will again abandon us
Two points about the Ukraine crisis are crystal clear. First, Vladimir Putin wishes to reimpose Russian control over Ukraine, whatever the price. His political dream of restoring the Soviet sphere of influence is echoed in a wishlist of “security guarantees” presented to western governments by Russia in December 2021. Nato, he maintains, should return to the pre-1997 state of affairs; Russia, apparently, need not.
Second, whatever Putin decides in the current crisis, there are real fears in central and eastern Europe that settled borders are now under threat. These fears are grounded in reason. What seemed unrealistic in the immediate post-cold war years is now again a real possibility. Questions about our collective safety and security have returned, along with memories of a traumatic and not so remote past.
Karolina Wigura is a historian of ideas, board member of the Kultura Liberalna Foundation in Warsaw and a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin
Jarosław Kuisz is a political analyst and essayist, editor-in-chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and a policy fellow at the University of Cambridge
Guardian Newsroom: Will Russia invade Ukraine? Join Mark Rice-Oxley, Andrew Roth, Luke Harding, Nataliya Gumenyuk and Orysia Lutsevych discussing the developments with Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday 8 February, 8pm GMT | 9pm CET | midday PDT | 3pm EDT. Book tickets here
Continue reading...Ruth Slenczynska: the pupil of Rachmaninov still releasing music at 97
Pianist who has played for five US presidents says great composer taught her to incorporate colour in music
The greatest lesson Ruth Slenczynska learned from the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov was that sounds have colour.
Nearly 90 years ago, the nine year-old Slenczynska was practising one of Rachmaninov’s preludes when he asked her to join him at the window. It was springtime in Paris, and the avenues were lined with mimosa trees laden with fluffy, golden blossoms.
Continue reading...Protests flare across Poland after death of young mother denied an abortion
Family of Agnieszka T say they want to ‘save other women in Poland from a similar fate’, as case met with anger over restrictive termination laws
Protests are under way across Poland after the death of a 37-year-old woman this week who was refused an abortion, a year since the country introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
On the streets of Warsaw on Tuesday night, protesters laid wreaths and lanterns in memory of Agnieszka T, who died earlier that day. She was pregnant with twins when one of the foetus’ heartbeat stopped and doctors refused to carry out an abortion. In a statement, her family accused the government of having “blood on its hands”. Further protests are planned in Częstochowa, the city in southern Poland where the mother-of-three was from.
Continue reading...Poland starts building wall through protected forest at Belarus border
Barrier will stretch for almost half the length of the border and cost 10 times migration department’s budget
Poland has started building a wall along its frontier with Belarus aimed at preventing asylum seekers from entering the country, which cuts through a protected forest and Unesco world heritage site.
The Polish border guard said the barrier would measure 186km (115 miles), almost half the length of the border shared by the two countries, reach up to 5.5 metres (18ft) and cost €353m (£293m). It will be equipped with motion detectors and thermal cameras.
Continue reading...Polish state has ‘blood on its hands’ after death of woman refused an abortion
Family says young mother’s health deteriorated rapidly after the twins she was carrying died a week apart in the womb
The family of a Polish woman who died on Tuesday after doctors refused to perform an abortion when the foetus’s heart stopped beating have accused the government of having “blood on their hands”.
The woman, identified only as Agnieszka T, was said to have been in the first trimester of a twin pregnancy when she was admitted to the Blessed Virgin Mary hospital in Częstochowa on 21 December. Her death comes a year after Poland introduced one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
Continue reading...‘The biggest task is to combat indifference’: Auschwitz Museum turns visitors’ eyes to current events
Director wants visit to former Nazi concentration camp to spark reflection on ‘silence of bystanders’
Piotr Cywiński has spent a lot of time pondering a question that has exercised historians, philosophers and politicians ever since the end of the second world war. What lessons should we draw from one of the darkest pages in human history, the organised mass killing at Auschwitz?
A 49-year-old Polish historian, Cywiński has been director of the Auschwitz Museum since 2006. His office is housed in a former hospital and pharmacy built for the camp’s SS guards, and his windows look out over a crematorium and gas chamber.
Continue reading...Polish senators draft law to regulate spyware after anti-Pegasus testimony
Senate commission plans reform after hearing how NSO software used against government critics
Polish senators plan to draft a law that would regulate the use of surveillance technology in the country, after hearing testimony of how the invasive Pegasus spyware has been used against a number of government critics.
Poland is the latest country where Pegasus, a surveillance tool developed by Israeli company NSO, appears to have been used for political purposes. Pegasus allows the operator to take control of a target’s mobile device, to access all data even from encrypted messaging apps, and to turn on audio or video recording.
Continue reading...Death threats and phone calls: the women answering cries for help one year on from Poland’s abortion ban
As new laws hit the most vulnerable pregnant women in need of care, volunteers struggle to help those unable to access safe abortions
Continue reading...Coronavirus live: Japan and Poland report record cases; Germany seven-day rate at new high
Concerns about new Omicron offshoot in England; France to bring in strict restrictions for unvaccinated people
Germany’s seven-day incidence rate has risen to a high of 772.7 infections per 100,000 people, up from 706.3.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 135,461 new infections on Saturday, an increase of 57,439 on the same day a week ago, when 78,022 positive tests were reported.
France reports nearly half a million new cases, a record increase; Italy records 228,179 daily infections – as it happened
France registers 464,769 new Covid-19 infections over the last 24 hours; Italy’s cases jump from 83,403 a day earlier
- Nicola Sturgeon announces lifting of Omicron restrictions in Scotland
- More than 900 Covid deaths in England and Wales in first week of January
- Calls for French MP to resign after announcing Covid protocol from Ibiza
- Hong Kong to cull thousands of hamsters after Covid found on 11
- UK Covid and Boris Johnson developments – live
China’s postal service has ordered workers to disinfect international deliveries and urged the public to reduce orders from overseas after authorities claimed mail could be the source of recent coronavirus outbreaks, Agence France-Press reports.
In recent days, Chinese officials have suggested that some people could have been infected by packages from abroad, including a woman in Beijing whom authorities said had no contact with other infected people but tested positive for a variant similar to those found in North America.
Continue reading...Europe closer to war now than at any point in last 30 years, Poland warns – video
Poland's foreign minister has warned that Europe is closer to war than it has been at any time in the last three decades, at the launch of his country's year-long chairing of the region's largest security organisation. Without naming Russia in his address on Thursday to envoys from the 57 members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Zbigniew Rau mentioned tensions in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, all countries with active or frozen conflicts in which Russia has been alleged to be a party
Continue reading...Increased repression and violence a sign of weakness, says Human Rights Watch
Watchdog’s latest report argues autocrats around the world are getting desperate as opponents form coalitions to challenge them
Increasingly repressive and violent acts against civilian protests by autocratic leaders and military regimes around the world are signs of their desperation and weakening grip on power, Human Rights Watch says in its annual assessment of human rights across the globe.
In its world report 2022, the human rights organisation said autocratic leaders faced a significant backlash in 2021, with millions of people risking their lives to take to the streets to challenge regimes’ authority and demand democracy.
Continue reading...Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong
Continue reading...Germans flock to Poland to buy fireworks in defiance of ban
Firework sales prohibited in Germany for second year in a row owing to Covid, resulting in growing stockpile
Germans seeking to defy a government ban on the domestic selling of fireworks before new year celebrations are heading in their droves across the border to Polish shops and factories.
A ban was announced this month for a second year in a row in an attempt to prevent large gatherings during the pandemic and to ease the burden on hospitals, which regularly have to treat serious injuries such as burns and lacerated limbs resulting from pyrotechnic accidents.
Continue reading...Trapped at Europe’s door: inside Belarus’s makeshift asylum dormitory
About 1,000 people, mostly Kurds, are waiting at a converted customs centre in Bruzgi for the chance to cross into EU
The giant warehouse towers over the Belarus countryside, less than a mile from the Polish border. In this 10,000 sq metre space patrolled by dozens of armed soldiers, 1,000 asylum seekers are crammed among countless industrial shelving units, held up on their way to Europe in the midst of a frigid winter.
“We’re trapped in this building,” says Alima Skandar, 40. “We don’t want to go back to Iraq and we can’t cross the border. Please, help us.”
Continue reading...