Holocaust law: Polish party wants Israel Prez booked
Warsaw, April 18: Polish nationalist movement Ruch Narodowy ( RN) said on Tuesday it had filed a complaint with prosecutors against Israel’s President under Poland’s controversial new Holocaust law for having attributed responsibility to Poland for Nazi German crimes.
It follows a press statement released by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin’s office last week after his meeting with Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in Poland’s southern city of Krakow on the occasion of the annual March of the Living at the site of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz- Birkenau.
According to the statement, Rivlin had said during the talks, “There is no doubt that there were many Poles who fought the Nazi regime, but we cannot deny that Poland and Poles had a hand in the extermination.”
The RN movement said Rivlin “had attributed responsibility for Nazi crimes to the Polish state,” which is forbidden the new Holocaust under law.
The legislation, which came into effect last month penalises such statements with fines or a jail term of up to three years.
The Israeli statement “requires quick and effective judicial proceedings and a serious penalty, both in terms of general prevention measures and public expectations,” the RN wrote on its website. “The author acted with the goal of consciously and intentionally committing a forbidden act.”