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...Category Archives: Poland
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...French daily Covid cases above 200,000 as Italy introduces stricter green pass
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.
Continue reading...Eastern European countries adopting authoritarian measures in face of Covid
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.
Continue reading...Claims Polish government used spyware is ‘crisis for democracy’, says opposition
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”.
Continue reading...Polish president vetoes media law criticised by US and EU
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.
Continue reading...Polish deputy PM says Germany wants to turn EU into ‘fourth reich’
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”.
Continue reading...‘My grandmother hid Jewish children’: Poland’s underground refugee network
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.
Continue reading...Brussels launches legal action over Polish rulings against EU law
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.
Continue reading...‘We need free speech’: protests erupt across Poland over controversial media bill
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.
Continue reading...Poland angers US by rushing through media law amid concerns over press freedom
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.
Continue reading...Java mouse-deer that stands just 10cm high takes first steps at Warsaw Zoo – video
A baby Java mouse-deer has been born at Warsaw Zoo, Poland. The new arrival is around 10cm tall and its sex is not yet known. The arrival comes after Warsaw Zoo welcomed its first mouse-deer, Arnold, in 2020, before he was joined by Linda in July this year. Mouse-deer are among the smallest hooved animals on the planet
Continue reading...Helping refugees starving in Poland’s icy border forests is illegal – but it’s not the real crime | Anna Alboth
The asylum seekers on the Poland-Belarus border are not aggressors: they are desperate pawns in a disgusting political struggle
One thought is a constant in my head: “I have kids at home, I cannot go to jail, I cannot go to jail.” The politics are beyond my reach or that of the victims on the Poland-Belarus border. It involves outgoing German chancellor, Angela Merkel, getting through to Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus. It’s ironic that this border has more than 50 media crews gathered, yet Poland is the only place in the EU where journalists cannot freely report.
Meanwhile, the harsh north European winter is closing in and my fingers are freezing in the dark snowy nights.
Continue reading...Fortress Europe: the millions spent on military-grade tech to deter refugees
We map out the rising number of high-tech surveillance and deterrent systems facing asylum seekers along EU borders
From military-grade drones to sensor systems and experimental technology, the EU and its members have spent hundreds of millions of euros over the past decade on technologies to track down and keep at bay the refugees on its borders.
Poland’s border with Belarus is becoming the latest frontline for this technology, with the country approving last month a €350m (£300m) wall with advanced cameras and motion sensors.
Continue reading...Lives lost at Europe’s borders and Afghan MPs in exile: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Manila
Continue reading...Poland plans to set up register of pregnancies to report miscarriages
Proposed register would come into effect in January, a year after near-total ban on abortion
Poland is planning to introduce a centralised register of pregnancies that would oblige doctors to report all pregnancies and miscarriages to the government.
The proposed register would come into effect in January 2022, a year after Poland introduced a near-total ban on abortion.
Continue reading...ECJ adviser backs rule-of-law measure in blow to Poland and Hungary
Court advised to dismiss challenge against law that lets EU block funds to states that curb judicial independence
EU authorities can cut funds to member states that are corrupt and curb independent courts, a senior adviser to the bloc’s top court has said.
In a setback for the nationalist governments of Poland and Hungary, a European court of justice senior lawyer said a law linking EU funds to respect for the rule of law was legally sound.
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