Category Archives: Poland

Polish state has ‘blood on its hands’ after death of woman refused an abortion

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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.

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‘The biggest task is to combat indifference’: Auschwitz Museum turns visitors’ eyes to current events

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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.

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Polish senators draft law to regulate spyware after anti-Pegasus testimony

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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.

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Death threats and phone calls: the women answering cries for help one year on from Poland’s abortion ban

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As new laws hit the most vulnerable pregnant women in need of care, volunteers struggle to help those unable to access safe abortions

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Coronavirus live: Japan and Poland report record cases; Germany seven-day rate at new high

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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.

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France reports nearly half a million new cases, a record increase; Italy records 228,179 daily infections – as it happened

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France registers 464,769 new Covid-19 infections over the last 24 hours; Italy’s cases jump from 83,403 a day earlier

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.

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Europe closer to war now than at any point in last 30 years, Poland warns – video

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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

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Increased repression and violence a sign of weakness, says Human Rights Watch

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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.

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Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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Germans flock to Poland to buy fireworks in defiance of ban

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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.

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Trapped at Europe’s door: inside Belarus’s makeshift asylum dormitory

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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.”

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French daily Covid cases above 200,000 as Italy introduces stricter green pass

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France sets European record, as Italy tightens measures against the unvaccinated

France has registered a national and European record for new coronavirus infections as the Omicron variant fuels a surge in cases across the continent, with multiple countries hitting new highs.

France on Wednesday reported 208,000 cases in the previous 24 hours, up from its previous record of almost 180,000 set the day before.

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Eastern European countries adopting authoritarian measures in face of Covid

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Analysis reveals widespread violations of international democratic freedoms in response to pandemic

Europe’s political approach to the coronavirus pandemic has divided down stark east-west lines, a Guardian analysis has found.

Five of 18 eastern European countries have registered major violations of international democratic freedoms since March 2020, according to research conducted by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, compared with none of 12 western European countries.

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Claims Polish government used spyware is ‘crisis for democracy’, says opposition

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Opposition leader Donald Tusk calls for inquiry after watchdog says government’s rivals were targeted by Pegasus spyware

Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk said on Tuesday reports that the government spied on its opponents represented the country’s biggest “crisis for democracy” since the end of communism.

A cybersecurity watchdog last week said the Pegasus spyware had been used to target prominent opposition figures, with Polish media dubbing the scandal a “Polish Watergate”.

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Polish president vetoes media law criticised by US and EU

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Law would have prevented companies outside the EEA from holding a controlling stake in Polish media companies

The Polish president has vetoed a media ownership law that critics said was aimed at silencing the US-owned news channel TVN24.

“I am vetoing it,” Andrzej Duda said in a televised statement, after the EU and the US heavily criticised the law.

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Polish deputy PM says Germany wants to turn EU into ‘fourth reich’

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Jarosław Kaczyński’s remarks in far-right newspaper are latest episode in Poland’s lengthy standoff with EU

The head of Poland’s ruling party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has said Germany is trying to turn the EU into a federal “German fourth reich”.

Speaking to the far-right Polish newspaper GPC, the head of the Law and Justice party (PiS) said some countries “are not enthusiastic at the prospect of a German fourth reich being built on the basis of the EU”.

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‘My grandmother hid Jewish children’: Poland’s underground refugee network

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As thousands attempt to cross the Belarus-Poland border seeking asylum in Europe, local activists are trying to help

In the attic of a cottage in the woods near the Polish village of Narewka, a young Iraqi Kurd crouches, trembling with cold and fear. Through the skylight, the blue lights of police vans flash on the walls of his hiding place. Outside, dozens of border guards are searching for people like him in the snowstorm. Downstairs, the owner of the house sits in silence with his terrified wife and children.

The young Kurd is one of thousands of asylum seekers who entered Poland across the border with Belarus, where countless others have become trapped on their way to Europe. The Polish family have offered him shelter. But if the Polish police find him, he risks being sent back across the frontier into the sub-zero forests of Belarus, while his protectors risk being charged for aiding illegal immigration.

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Brussels launches legal action over Polish rulings against EU law

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European Commission says it has ‘serious concerns’ about challenges by Warsaw’s constitutional tribunal

The European Commission has begun legal action against Poland over rulings by the country’s constitutional court that challenged the supremacy of EU law, in an escalation of the long-running battle between Brussels and Warsaw.

The EU executive said it had “serious concerns” about the Polish constitutional tribunal and its recent case law, citing rulings where the court had challenged the primacy of EU law.

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‘We need free speech’: protests erupt across Poland over controversial media bill

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The bill, yet to be signed into law, would tighten rules around foreign ownership of media

Poles have staged nationwide protests including a thousands-strong rally outside the presidential palace to demand the head of state veto a law they say would limit media freedoms in the European Union’s largest eastern member.

Unexpectedly rushed through parliament on Friday, the legislation would tighten rules around foreign ownership of media, specifically affecting the ability of news channel TVN24, owned by US media company Discovery Inc, to operate.

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Poland angers US by rushing through media law amid concerns over press freedom

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US ‘deeply troubled’ by the bill, which tightens foreign ownership rules, arguing it will weaken press freedom

Poland’s parliament passed a media bill that detractors say aims to silence a news channel critical of the government, in an unexpected move that will stoke concern over media freedom and reopen a diplomatic dispute with the US.

Critics say the legislation will affect the ability of news channel TVN24, owned by US media company Discovery Inc, to operate because it tightens the rules around foreign ownership of media in Poland.

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