Polish Holocaust bill gets nod, despite criticism
Terror attack driver jailed for 43 years
WARSAW: The Polish senate has voted in favour of a controversial bill that will criminalise anyone who lays any blame on Poland or its people for Nazi war crimes.
The bill, which was passed by the lower house last week, and still has to be signed into law by the president, has sparked condemnation in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it an attempt “to rewrite history”, state-run news agency PAP reported this week.
Under the proposed legislation, anyone who publicly describes concentration camps built by Nazi Germany on Polish soil as “Polish death camps” could be punished by a fine or up to three years in jail.
Its critics argue it could allow the government to deny cases in which Polish complicity in war crimes had been proved.
Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice party has rejected the criticism, saying it wished to defend the country’s reputation and prevent incorrect language being used to portray its history.
Senate speaker Stanislaw Karczewski said Poland wanted to continue dialogue with Israel and explain the intention behind the new legislation.
The US asked Poland to re-evaluate the measure, given its impact on “the principle of free speech and on our ability to be effective partners”, according to the State Department.
While acknowledging “phrases such as ‘Polish death camps’ are inaccurate, misleading and hurtful”, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert expressed concern the legislation “could undermine free speech and academic discourse”.
Vice-president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans said Europeans should know their history to learn from its mistakes.
“All countries under Nazi occupation during World War II had many many heroes who fought against that occupation but, sadly, in all those countries there were always people that could be found to collaborate with the Nazi occupiers to implement their horrendous agenda,” Timmermans said.
The media freedom monitor of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Harlem Desir said history should be settled by academic research and free discussion and not in court.
“I hope that to protect freedom of expression the law will be vetoed by the president,” Desir, said.
According to David Silberklan, a historian at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, there were no Polish guards at Nazi-controlled death camps in Poland, however, Poland was permeated by virulent anti-semitism at the time. Some Poles killed Jews and co-operated with the Germans, Silberklan said.
One of the most extreme examples was a massacre of 300 Jews by Christian Polish townspeople in Jedwabne but there are records of other such events. – Dpa/african News Agency (ANA) LONDON: A 48-year-old man convicted of driving a van into pedestrians near a mosque in north London’s Finsbury Park area was sentenced to a minimum of 43 years in prison on Friday.
London’s Woolwich Crown Court sentenced Darren Osborne, who killed a 51-year-old man and injured nine others in the late-night attack in June, to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 43 years.
Osborne, from the Welsh capital of Cardiff, was convicted of terrorism-related murder and attempted murder, despite his denial of the charges.
Prosecutors and police said he was motivated by a hatred of Muslims and wanted to kill as many people as possible.
“From our investigation, it was clear that Osborne had planned to come to London with the intention of carrying out an attack against the Muslim community,” metropolitan police commander Dean Haydon said.
The Muslim Council of Britain said the attack had occurred during last summer’s “most violent manifestation of Islamophobia yet in our country”.
“We cannot be complacent and regard this as a one-off terrorist incident,” Harun Khan, the council’s secretary-general, said.
“We heard during the trial how Osborne was motivated by anti-muslim groups and Islamophobic tropes not only prevalent in far right circles, but also made acceptable in our mainstream. The case tells us that we must all exercise caution when tempted to stigmatise any group of people, regardless of colour, creed or community,” he said.
Sue Hemming, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said prosecutors had been been “clear throughout that this was a terrorist attack”. – dpa