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Continue reading...Category Archives: Poland
Polish activists protest after woman’s death in wake of strict abortion law
Demonstrations and candlelit vigil after woman, 30, dies of septic shock in 22nd week of pregnancy
A Polish hospital has said that doctors and midwives did everything they could to save the lives of a pregnant woman and her foetus in a case that has put the spotlight on the country’s new stricter abortion law.
The 30-year-old woman died of septic shock in her 22nd week of pregnancy. Doctors did not perform an abortion, even though her foetus was lacking amniotic fluid, according to a lawyer for the family.
Continue reading...Poland fined €1m a day over controversial judicial system changes
Warsaw calls European court of justice move blackmail and says penalties ‘not the right road’
Poland has been fined €1m (£845,000) a day by the European court of justice for ignoring a ruling that it must suspend its controversial judicial system changes.
The inflammatory move, which runs contrary to recent words of caution from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was immediately denounced in Warsaw as “blackmail”.
Continue reading...German police halt armed far-right vigilantes on Polish border
Weapons seized after call from far-right party for members to prevent migrants from entering country
German police say they have stopped more than 50 far-right vigilantes armed with pepper spray, a bayonet, a machete and batons who were trying to patrol the Polish border to stop migrants entering the country.
The vigilantes were following a call by the Third Way, a far-right party with suspected links to neo-Nazi groups, for its members to stop illegal crossings near the town of Guben.
Continue reading...Navalny honoured, Regeni trial begins: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
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Freezing to death: the migrants left to die on the Poland-Belarus border – video
Migrants are dying in Poland's forested border with Belarus, as the countries are locked in a geopolitical standoff. Polish authorities accuse Belarus of deliberately abandoning migrants near its border in an attempt to destabilise the EU because the bloc imposing sanctions on Belarus after its disputed election.
Poland has responded by declaring an emergency zone, forbidden to journalists and activists, where it is believed that, hidden from sight, they are illegally forcing people seeking asylum back over the border instead of processing applications. We follow Piotr Bystrianin, an activist trying to locate desperate migrants in the woods before the border guards do
Continue reading...More than 30,000 Polish women sought illegal or foreign abortions since law change last year
Tens of thousands have travelled to other European countries including England for legal terminations since near-total ban, campaigners say
At least 34,000 women in Poland are known to have sought abortions illegally or abroad since the country introduced a near total ban on terminations a year ago.
According to Abortion Without Borders (AWB), an organisation that helps women access safe abortion services, more than 1,000 Polish women have sought second-trimester abortions in foreign clinics since the country passed draconian new laws.
Continue reading...Angela Merkel calls for compromise amid row over Polish ECJ snub
German chancellor offers olive branch to Warsaw at what may prove to be her last EU summit
Angela Merkel, who earlier this week reflected on her deep hurt over Brexit, has called for European Union countries to compromise over their competing visions of integration, at what was being billed in Brussels as a farewell summit for the German chancellor.
The attempt by Merkel, at her 107th and possibly final EU summit, to smooth over a dispute over Poland’s rejection of European court of justice rulings, in an olive branch to Warsaw, came as the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, demanded tough action, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán rallied to the defence of the Polish government.
Continue reading...Polish prime minister escalates war of words with EU over rule of law
Mateusz Morawiecki says European court’s ‘creeping revolution’ undermines Polish sovereignty
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has clashed with the European Commission president and MEPs after accusing EU institutions of seeking to turn the country into a province, in an escalation of the battle between Warsaw and Brussels over the rule of law.
During a heated debate in the European parliament in Strasbourg, where parallels between the Polish situation and Brexit were raised repeatedly by MEPs, Morawiecki claimed the European court of justice (ECJ) was responsible for a “creeping revolution” undermining Poland’s sovereignty.
Continue reading...Poland criticised over stranded migrants after seventh death at border
Identity documents suggest latest person to die was 24-year-old Syrian who arrived in Belarus last month
Polish police have found another body near the border with Belarus amid fresh allegations that Warsaw is breaking international law in its treatment of migrants stranded in harrowing conditions on the EU’s eastern frontier.
The man’s body was spotted in a field by a helicopter crew, police said, bringing to seven the number of people reported by Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian and Belarusian authorities to have died trying to cross the border since the summer.
Continue reading...Turkey’s border wall and deported Haitians: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
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Continue reading...Brussels vows swift response to Poland’s ruling against EU law
Ursula von der Leyen says European Commission will decide on next steps to take
The head of the European Commission has vowed a swift response to a ruling from Poland’s top court rejecting the supremacy of EU law, which has thrown relations between Brussels and Warsaw into a crisis.
Ursula von der Leyen said she was deeply concerned by Thursday’s ruling of the Polish constitutional tribunal, which concluded that basic principles of EU law were incompatible with Poland’s constitution. “I have instructed the commission’s services to analyse it thoroughly and swiftly. On this basis, we will decide on next steps,” she said in her first public statement on the matter.
Continue reading...Polish court rules EU laws incompatible with its constitution
Country takes big step towards ‘legal Polexit’ against backdrop of rows between ruling nationalists and Brussels
Poland’s constitutional tribunal has ruled that some EU laws are in conflict with the country’s constitution, taking a major step towards a “legal Polexit” with far-reaching consequences for Warsaw’s funding and future relations with the bloc.
The tribunal, whose legitimacy is contested after multiple appointments of judges loyal to the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, said some provisions of EU treaties and EU court rulings clashed with Poland’s highest law, adding that EU institutions “act beyond the scope of their competences”.
Continue reading...Concerns grow over Poland’s treatment of migrants stuck at Belarus border
Warsaw defies critics to extend state of emergency as it seeks to portray migrants as dangerous
Concerns over Poland’s treatment of migrants stranded on its border with Belarus are mounting after Warsaw this week ignored domestic and international criticism to extend a state of emergency and sought to portray them as dangerous deviants.
The European commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, met the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kamiński, in Warsaw on Thursday night but won no concessions on the bloc’s request for monitors from the EU’s Frontex border force to be allowed into the zone, despite growing fears for the migrants’ safety after the deaths of at least five people.
Continue reading...Former Nazi concentration camp secretary, 96, faces trial
Irmgard Furchner faces charges of aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners at Stutthof
A 96-year-old woman who worked as a secretary for a Nazi concentration camp commandant is to face trial in northern Germany on Thursday on charges of aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners.
Irmgard Furchner, who was just 18 when she started work at Stutthof camp on the Baltic coast in Nazi-occupied Poland, is the first woman to stand trial in decades over crimes connected to the Third Reich.
Continue reading...EU seeks to tighten Belarus visa rules amid growing migrant crisis
Bloc accuses Lukashenko of incentivising migrants to cross Belarus’s border with the EU
The European Commission has said it wants to suspend easy access to visas for Belarusian officials in an attempt to deter it from pushing migrants from the Middle East and Africa across its border with the bloc.
Neighbouring Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have declared states of emergency after a sharp increase in arrivals at their borders with Belarus, accusing the country’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, of an act of “hybrid warfare” in seeking to orchestrate a EU migrant crisis.
Continue reading...Four migrants found dead on Poland-Belarus border
Minsk accused of abandoning migrants at frontier in attempt to put pressure on EU
Four people stranded on the border between Poland and Belarus have died in recent days, officials have said, amid continuing allegations that Minsk is abandoning migrants at its frontier in an attempt to put pressure on the EU.
Polish authorities confirmed that three people, including an Iraqi man, were found dead, of hypothermia and exhaustion, on the Polish side of the border on Saturday, while the body of a woman was seen lying on the Belarus side on Sunday.
Continue reading...Poland vows to keep coalmine open despite €500,000-a-day ECJ fine
Warsaw argues suspension of operations at Turów on Czech border would put its energy security at risk
Poland’s rightwing government has said it will continue to mine coal on its border with the Czech Republic despite being ordered to pay €500,000 for every day that it defies a European court of justice order to stop.
The fine was issued by the EU’s highest court on Monday after four months of Warsaw ignoring an earlier order to suspend extraction of lignite, a low-quality brown coal, at the Turów opencast mine in south-west Poland.
Continue reading...Texas anti-abortion law shows ‘terrifying’ fragility of women’s rights, say activists
Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US
The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.
Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.
Continue reading...The disappeared in Mexico, Afghan female footballers and a giant puppet: human rights this fortnight in pictures
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