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Category Archives: Poland
‘A gift for Holocaust deniers’: how Polish libel ruling will hit historians
The authors of a study on the fate of Polish Jews under Nazism have been told to apologise to a woman for defaming her uncle. The implications for future historical work are alarming
Poland’s nationalists have won their latest battle to defend the country’s wartime reputation. On Tuesday, the Warsaw district court ordered two leading historians to apologise to a woman for defaming a relative in their book about the Holocaust. The landmark ruling has serious implications for academic freedom and the future of Holocaust research, with historians around the world condemning the judgment.
“These are not matters to be adjudicated by courts, this is a point that can be discussed by scholars or interested readers in the exchange of opinions. In that sense, it’s really scandalous,” says Jan Tomasz Gross, whose seminal book Neighbours was a watershed in Poland’s public discussion of the Holocaust more than 20 years ago. “It’s part of a broad effort to stifle any inquiry and particularly the complicity of the local population in the persecution of Jews during that time.”
Continue reading...Fears for Polish Holocaust research as historians ordered to apologise
Court tells professors to apologise to 81-year-old woman who claims they defamed her late uncle
A court has ordered two prominent historians to apologise to an elderly woman who claimed they had defamed her late uncle over his wartime actions, in a case seen as critical to independent Holocaust research in Poland.
Prof Jan Grabowski of the University of Ottawa and Prof Barbara Engelking of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research were accused of defaming Edward Malinowski by suggesting in a book that he gave up Jews to Nazi Germans.
Continue reading...Fears rise that Polish libel trial could threaten future Holocaust research
Case brought in wake of rightwing government criminalising blame of Polish nation for Nazi crimes could have implications for further research
Two Polish historians are facing a libel trial over a book examining Poles’ behaviour during the second world war, a case whose outcome is expected to determine the future of independent Holocaust research under Poland’s nationalist government.
A verdict is expected in Warsaw’s district court on 9 February in the case against Barbara Engelking, a historian with the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, and Jan Grabowski, a professor of history at the University of Ottawa. While the case is a libel trial, it comes in the wake of a 2018 law that makes it a crime to falsely accuse the Polish nation of crimes committed by Nazi Germany. The law caused a major diplomatic spat with Israel.
Continue reading...Thousands march in Poland against abortion curbs – video
Thousands have protested for a third consecutive night in Warsaw and other parts of Poland after the country’s rightwing government implemented a court ruling imposing a near-total ban on abortion.
Protesters have defied coronavirus restrictions and sub-zero temperatures to rally after the controversial judgment was given legal force on Wednesday
Continue reading...Third night of protests in Poland after abortion ban takes effect
Thousands join rallies in Warsaw and other cities after delayed ban finally becomes law
Thousands have protested for a third consecutive night in Warsaw and other parts of Poland after the country’s rightwing government implemented a court ruling imposing a near-total ban on abortion.
Protesters have defied coronavirus restrictions and sub-zero temperatures to rally after the controversial judgment was given legal force on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Thousands protest in Poland over near-total ban on abortion – video
More than 400,000 protesters gathered across Poland with the country set to impose a near total-ban on abortion. A controversial ruling that banned abortions due to foetal defects led to the largest protests in the country's recent history in October 2020. The announcement of plans to implement the ban led to a new wave of mass gathering around the country that already had some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe
Continue reading...Poland plans to make censoring of social media accounts illegal
Following Trump’s Twitter ban, Polish government wants to protect posts that do not break nation’s laws
Polish government officials have denounced the deactivation of Donald Trump’s social media accounts, and said a draft law being readied in Poland will make it illegal for tech companies to take similar actions there.
“Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not,” wrote the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, on Facebook earlier this week, without directly mentioning Trump. “There can be no consent to censorship.”
Continue reading...As parts of UK enter third Covid lockdown, how does rest of Europe compare?
Rules vary from country to country but many European nations face severe restrictions
After a brief and partial relaxation of the rules over Christmas and New Year, many continental European countries have returned to the tough anti-Covid regimes that were imposed this autumn – with some tightening measures further.
According to the latest update from the World Health Organization, in the final week of 2020 the UK had a 14-day new-case notification rate of 720 for every 100,000 people, more than double that in France, Germany, Italy and Spain but lower than the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.
Continue reading...Polish women travel abroad for abortions ahead of law change
Support services in Poland and abroad say numbers increasing even before legislation is tightened
Polish women are increasingly being forced to travel abroad to seek abortions even though a court ruling to tighten the country’s already strict laws has not yet coming into force, activists have said.
The constitutional court ruled in October that abortion was illegal even in cases where there were severe foetal abnormalities. Around 1,000 abortions a year – almost all of the country’s legal abortion procedures – are carried out for this reason.
Continue reading...Rule of law fears remain in Poland despite EU compromise
Compromise on budget payments pushes back a clause that would make some EU funds conditional on rule-of-law
The compromise between the EU and Hungary and Poland on establishing a link between budget payments and member states maintaining the rule of law – agreed on Thursday night – allows the bloc to move ahead with a new seven-year budget and coronavirus recovery fund, but is unlikely to be the end of the story.
The compromise pushes back to a later date a clause that would make some EU funds conditional on rule-of-law criteria. Judit Varga, justice minister for Hungary’s rightwing government immediately declared “victory”, and also said the Hungarian government would challenge the new provision in the European court of justice.
Continue reading...As Poles and Hungarians, we urge the EU to stand firm on the rule of law | Máté Varga
Democracy is seriously under threat in our countries. The EU must stand up to the bullying tactics of Orbán and Morawiecki
As European leaders gather in Brussels this week municipal buildings and monuments in Warsaw and Budapest have been lit up in blue. The illuminations, organised by campaign groups and the mayors of these cities, are meant as a powerful reminder of the dark path ahead if the EU stands aside while the rule of law is extinguished in Poland and Hungary. The lights are a call for solidarity with the millions of citizens of both countries who argue that EU funding should be conditional on their governments upholding these fundamental rights.
The release of €1.8tn in EU funds for rebuilding after the pandemic and the EU’s 2021-2027 budget is at stake. So far agreement has been derailed by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki because of their unwillingness to accept that membership of the EU depends on upholding democratic values.
Continue reading...EU faces crisis as Hungary and Poland veto seven-year budget
Countries reject package over attempts to link funding to respect for rule of law
The EU is facing a crisis after Hungary and Poland vetoed the bloc’s historic €1.8tn (£1.6tn) budget and coronavirus recovery plan over attempts to link funding to respect for democratic norms.
The move unravels months of negotiations over the scale and terms of the EU’s spending and sets the stage for a stormy videoconference meeting of the bloc’s leaders on Thursday.
Continue reading...Leaders at a loss as coronavirus catches up with central Europe
Politicians struggle to explain why a region so much less affected in spring is so badly hit now
In the countries of central Europe, which during spring seemed to provide a best-practice model for keeping coronavirus at bay, case numbers have risen sharply, and governments in the region fear that their health systems are close to capacity and may struggle to cope. Central Europe is now just as badly hit as countries further west, and by some parameters is doing worse.
The Visegrad Four group of nations – Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia – were all notable for their success in keeping case numbers low earlier in the year, even as gruesome statistics of deaths and hospitalisations came out of western Europe on a daily basis.
Continue reading...‘Sex is not a crime’: the women protesting Poland’s new abortion law
As Poland attempts to pass a new abortion law that amounts to a near-total ban on terminations, including in cases where a baby is sure to die soon after birth, the country's biggest protests in four decades have erupted, with Polish women challenging church as well as state. Karolina Więckiewicz is a lawyer with the charity Abortion Without Borders, which advises Polish women on abortions and helps them to avail of safe, legal procedures overseas. We follow her on to the streets as women of all ages rise up to demand rights over their own bodies, and an end to social stigma around sex and abortion
Continue reading...‘A backlash against a patriarchal culture’: How Polish protests go beyond abortion rights
Mass demonstrations have exposed underlying anger at political and religious interference in people’s everyday lives
For 14 nights they have marched, enraged by a near-total ban on abortion that has stirred a generation to stage the largest mass demonstrations that Poland has seen since Solidarność toppled the communist regime in the 1980s.
Until soaring coronavirus numbers and a looming national lockdown made it almost impossible, up to a million people nightly defied a government ban on protests, taking to the streets from Warsaw to Łódź, Poznań to Wrocław, Gdańsk to Kraków.
Continue reading...Deal struck to enable EU to block budget payments to rogue members
Qualified majority vote by states will be sufficient for removal of voting rights
Brussels will be able to block budget payments to rogue EU governments that undermine the rule of law or the independence of judges, under a hard-fought agreement between the European parliament and member states.
In what was described as the “end of a painful phase” for the EU, a provisional deal has been struck, which will allow a qualified majority of member states to impose sanctions where governments fail to maintain democratic standards.
Continue reading...Poland delays abortion ban as nationwide protests continue
Anti-government rallies continue over court’s ruling to restrict access to terminations
Poland’s rightwing government has delayed implementation of a controversial court ruling that would outlaw almost all abortion after it prompted the largest protests since the fall of communism.
“There is a discussion going on, and it would be good to take some time for dialogue and for finding a new position in this situation, which is difficult and stirs high emotions,” Michał Dworczyk, the head of the prime minister’s office, told Polish media on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Pro-choice supporters hold biggest-ever protest against Polish government
About 100,00o people take to the streets of Warsaw to oppose tightened abortion law
About one hundred thousand protesters took to the streets of the Polish capital, Warsaw, on Friday, in the largest demonstration of popular anger directed against Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) since it assumed office in 2015.
Protests have been held across the country since Poland’s constitutional tribunal declared earlier this month that abortions in instances where a foetus is diagnosed with a serious and irreversible birth defect were unconstitutional. Such procedures constitute about 96% of legal abortions in Poland, which already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
Continue reading...Polish hospitals begin turning away women seeking abortions
Institutions appear to enforce controversial ban despite legislation not yet taking effect
Hospitals in Poland have been turning away women seeking abortions even though a court ruling that has instituted a near-total ban on terminations has not yet taken effect.
The ban, which outlaws one of the three narrow exceptions under which abortion is still permitted – that of severe foetal defects – has sparked huge protests in Poland.
Continue reading...