Warsaw (PMN)—Lech Walesa went to court
on January 8, 2010, to clear his name of accusations he once spied
for the communist secret service. Walesa had won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1983 and for five years served as independent Poland's
first president.
Walesa is suing Lech Kaczynski,
Poland’s current president, for libel in a civil suit that began in
November. He is demanding about $34,000 in damages for accusations
he collaborated with the communist secret service back in the 1970s.
Walesa’s supporters say it is part of a smear campaign by political
rivals.
Neither Walesa nor Kaczynski has
attended the court sessions in person.
The accusations before the court stem
from comments made by President Kaczynski during an interview with
Polish television last year, in which he accused Walesa of having
been a communist agent, code-named "Bolek." Those charges are not
new. They first surfaced in 1992 when Poland’s new government was
delving into the files of the communist-era secret service. They
found a list of agents and Lech Walesa’s name was on it. However, it
was common for the secret service to falsify such documents. Polish
courts have since cleared the former president of any wrong-doing.
A controversial book published in 2008
by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, a
government-affiliated research institute, concluded that Walesa had
indeed been a collaborator.
According to opinion polls, Lech Walesa
remains very popular in Poland. But, not everybody believes Walesa
should be involved in current politics or that he should be using
the court system so aggressively to safeguard his reputation. In
general, they say he is already a great national hero and should be
content to settle for that.
Warsaw (PMN)—Scientists in southern
Poland have made a discovery that suggests four-legged creatures
walked the earth 18 million years, earlier than originally thought.
The fossilized footprints were found in 2002 in the Swietokrzyskie
mountains near the city of Kielce by geologists Grzegorz
Niedzwiedzki and Piotr Szrek of the University of Warsaw and the
Polish Geological Institute.
Further tests on the findings have
prompted scientists to question original theories as to when sea
life first began to move onto land. Niedzwiedzki told TVP [Polish
Television] in early January, 2010, "The seriousness of the findings
are in the fact that they are very old fossils left by animals with
four paws and claws in the sediment of a shallow sea and shore." It
would mean that these animals were on land nearly 20 million years
earlier than previously thought.
A key part of the evolutionary theory
involves a creature known as the Tiktaalik, a shallow-water fish
with fins, which is often thought of as the beginning of the
"missing link" between sea creatures and land-roaming vertebrates.
Until now, it was widely accepted that they existed 375 million
years ago. The new evidence has thrown timelines into question.
Wroclaw, Poland (PMN)—A Polish couple
who met in the back of a police car on their way to a Wroclaw jail
have won the right to marry behind bars after taking their case to
the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Pawel J. can now
wed Magdalena H. after the court found a decision by prison
authorities barring them from marriage was not in accordance with
human rights legislation.
"Prison deprives a person of freedom
and certain rights and privileges. But it does not mean that a
person held in custody does not have the right to marriage," stated
the court in its ruling.
The two had met in 2002, and romance
flourished despite them serving time in separate wings of the same
institution. Letters were exchanged until Pawel finally proposed.
The prison refused to allow him to marry on the grounds that he and
his fiancée had communicated with each other through letters that
were barred under prison regulations.
Pawel won the backing of the Helsinki
Foundation, and took the prison service to court. The authorities
eventually decided against contesting the Strasbourg ruling,
stressing that there are in fact no regulations stopping convicts
from marrying.
Warsaw (PMN)—Poland’s secret service
has arrested a Russian on suspicion of spying. The man, who had
lived in Poland for ten years, was detained after Poland’s internal
security agency (ABW) deemed his presence a threat to national
security.
"It was decided to pick him up as his
operations against us were becoming increasingly hostile and
damaging," said a security source, quoted by the newspaper Gazeta
Prawna [Legal Gazette] on January 8, 2010. "He acted with malice
and premeditation." Zbigniew Jaskolski, a spokesman for the
prosecutor’s office confirmed that a man was under investigation for
spying.
The arrest occurred a year ago, but
remained secret owing to its sensitive nature, and reports added
that the suspect allegedly possessed secret equipment for
transmitting information back to his handlers in Moscow, and that he
had resisted arrest. While Polish authorities were quick to laud the
arrest, bestowing honors on the team involved, the operation
indicated that Russia has made Poland a particular target for
espionage.
Last year it was revealed that Poland
had expelled two Russian diplomats who allegedly worked for Russia’s
military intelligence service (GRU) and had tried to unearth
compromising information on Polish generals as part as a possible
blackmail campaign.
Security experts believe that Poland’s
decision to host the a controversial U.S. missile shield, now
changed to some form of high-tech weaponry, encouraged a surge of
Russian interest in the country.
Warsaw (PMN)–The
stadium in Poland that will be home to the Euro 2012 football
[soccer in the U.S.] championship games is being imported from
Italy. More than twelve thousand tons of steel will travel over 800
miles for 14 hours from near Venice, Italy to Warsaw, Poland. The
first shipments arrived on site on Monday January 4, 2010.
About 70% of the steel construction is
ready. It is prefabricated by Italian company Cimolai, which was
also responsible for elements of the stadium for this year’s World
Cup in Johannesburg.
In order not to chip or scratch the
lacquer work on any of the elements, the journey will be made on
special extra-wide trucks escorted by cars with flashing signals.
The trip will take place at night, so as not to wreak havoc in
peak-hour Warsaw traffic, and the route is specially planned to
avoid narrow streets and sharp turns.
All of the steel elements need to be in
place by April, and all the steel grating has to be ready in June.
This is one of the main deadlines, and Janusz Kubicki, Vice
President of the National Center for Sport, says the construction
consortium faces a fine of $34,000 a day for the first two weeks and
$342.000 daily for every day thereafter.
Despite freezing conditions, concrete
foundations are being laid and 60% of the reinforcement work is in.
Tents have been put up around the building site, and heating is
allowing work to continue. Basically, the stadium will be made up of
a barrel-like outer construction that fundamentally will not be
attached to a floating roof, an openwork aluminum net in Poland’s
national colors that will rest on taut steel lines stretched across
the top of the drum.
Warsaw (PMN)—Because public support for
the EuroPride event in Poland has dramatically improved, Polish news
headlines of last year such as "Gays To Flood Warsaw" are expected
to be likely. Warsaw residents are split by this year’s equal rights
parade, EuroPride 2010. A new poll for one of Poland’s leading news
services showed 45% of locals support the march, while 44% are
against it. That is more than twice as many supporters than two
years ago.
Social observers say it reflects a
mindset shift in the community and is a positive result for the gay
community in Poland. When then-President of Warsaw Lech Kaczynski
banned a parade in the city in 2005, only 30% of residents
disapproved of the decision. Three years later, this dropped to 25%.
This suggests a liberal change in the city, but as many as 91% of
the people polled said they would not be attending the march.
EuroPride 2010, July 9-18, will be the
first time the parade will take place in an East-Central European
nation, and the organizers say it will continue the tradition of
Christopher Street Day, with the motto "Freedom, Equality,
Tolerance." Christopher Street refers to the site in New York where
the modern gay rights movement began.
The Equality Foundation said that
EuroPride 2010 will include events from the world of film, theater,
science, sport and the arts. The organizers expect around 20,000
supporters from around Europe.
Warsaw (PMN)—Jacek Borcuch’s "Wszystko
co kocham" ["All That I Love"] was selected for screening in the
main competition of the Sundance Film Festival, held in Park City,
Utah, January 21-31, 2010, as the first Polish film to be shown at
the annual event.
The movie went on general release in
Polish cinemas in mid-January, 2010, four months after it won the
"Longest Applause" Award at the Polish Film Festival. Described by
several critics as Poland’s present-day answer to "Romeo and
Juliet," it is set in 1981, during the Solidarity revolution in
Poland.
"All That I Love" quickly received rave
reviews from Polish critics.
The film’s protagonists are four
teenagers who form a punk group to express their longing for freedom
and rebellion toward the grey socialist reality that surrounds them.
They score a success at a music festival. One of the boys, a son of
an army officer and communist party member, falls in love with a
daughter of a Solidarity activist. The film demonstrates how
politics interferes with the private lives of people and families.
Borcuch, 39, who is also the author of
the script, started his career as an actor, appearing in several
high-acclaimed films. "All That I Love" is his fourth film.
Warsaw (PMN)—A Polish court issued a
warrant on January 14, 2010, for the arrest of Anders Hogstrom, the
Swedish former leader of a group of right-wing extremists, suspected
of involvement in the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" ["Work
Makes Freedom"] sign at the German-created Auschwitz concentration
camp. According to the Polish news agency (PAP), the prosecutors
want Hogstrom, who is believed to be in Sweden, to be arrested and
taken to Krakow for questioning.
Pictures of Hogstrom, together with
personal information were sent to the Krakow Police from Sweden. The
pictures were then shown to two of the five suspects detained in
Krakow for the theft. They are said to have identified Hogstrom and
stated that he participated in the crime at the former concentration
camp.
The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter
[Daily News] wrote that the Polish police also is interested in
getting in contact with another Swedish citizen. However, that
person is not a suspect of any crime.
Following the court decision as a
basis, Hogstrom can be detained in Sweden. A European arrest warrant
issued that Swedish prosecutors can consider.
Warsaw (PMN)—Responding to criticism
that Poland’s financial aid to earthquake-torn Haiti was meager,
Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said, "$150,000, the equivalent of
three four-wheel drive vehicles, is not a ridiculous sum." Sikorski
also told the Polish TVN 24 station on January 15, 2010, that the
bulk of Poland’s financial assistance and humanitarian aid to Haiti
will be via the EU.
Meanwhile, TVP television says the
Polish Consulate in Columbia is saying that a man of dual Polish and
Canadian citizenship, himself an aid worker for the UN, is known to
have died in the earthquake. Sikorski assured reporters that Polish
tourists who had been trapped in the country were being airlifted to
the Dominican Republic.
Sikorski stressed that the Polish
rescue team is one of 11 worldwide that are certified by the UN to
be able to carry out such a task. "We can be proud that as a country
that once received assistance can now give it," he added.
Bothered by criticism that the Polish
team had been slow in being deployed, he said that it was very
difficult to plan and get to the affected area, as it was a nation
"in chaos". Rescue teams would need the support of American troops,
he said, as they will not be armed. U.S. forces were coordinating
the humanitarian action.
Fifty-four Polish rescuers left for
Haiti, with ten search dogs and four tons of equipment.
Warsaw (PMN)—The New Poland Express
(NPE) reported on January 8, 2010, that a key witness in one of
Poland’s most high-profile murder cases died in mysterious
circumstances in prison, prompting immediate calls for an
investigation. Artur Zirajewski was found dead in a cell of a Gdansk
prison hospital after reportedly suffering a pulmonary embolism,
although it was widely rumored that he may have killed himself.
Serving 15 years for an unrelated
crime, Zirajewski was a prime witness in the killing of the former
head of the police, General Marek Papala, who was gunned down in
1998 in a crime that bore all the hallmarks of a mafia hit. That
crime remains unsolved.
Following Zirajewski’s death the Law
and Justice (PiS) party called for an extraordinary meeting of
parliament’s justice committee to probe what it described as the
"mysterious and questionable death." the party wants an explanation
as to just why such a valuable prisoner was left unsupervised
despite being unwell, as well as an answer to the question whether
he committed suicide or there was foul play involved.
In his testimony Zirajewski claimed
that Edward Mazur, a Chicago-based, Polish-American businessman had
offered another man about $40,000 to kill Papala. Experts pointed
out that Zirajewski’s death came after he tried to get his sentence
reduced by offering more information on Papala’s murder.
Zirajewski is the latest of a number of
people linked to high-profile murder cases to die in suspicious
circumstances. Three people involved in the kidnap and murder of
businessman Krzysztof Olewnik have died, and a criminologist has
claimed that 10 people connected to corruption cases had died from
having "little accidents" or committing suicide.
London, England (PMN)—Poland injected
optimism for further momentum in electronic ID (e-ID) rollouts in
Europe with the recent announcement that a national e-ID project
will be rolled out in early 2011. The increased application of
smartcard technologies within Poland and Europe is expected to
accelerate demand in other areas, generating incremental revenues
for the smartcard industry.
The pl.ID project in Poland anticipates
a budget of $125 million of which approximately $105.6 million will
be funded by the European Union (EU). With a planned duration of
four years, the groundwork is expected to be laid in time for the
first issuance of a national e-ID by January 1,2011.
Unlike other countries like Spain or
the Netherlands, Poland will likely issue the new electronic ID
cards free of charge. Valid for ten years, the cards will store
personal data, a digital photograph and personal digital signature
and, possibly, additional biometric information.
The Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW)
is already investing heavily in infrastructure necessary to
accommodate the Information Technology (IT) overhaul for this
project.
Warsaw (PMN)—A survey commissioned by
Poland’s Foreign Ministry indicates most Poles think Poland should
provide financial support to developing countries. The research
found 83% of respondents are in favor of development aid. In fact,
the idea of helping out internationally has been gaining acceptance
in Poland over the last few years. In 2004, 63% of Poles supported
assistance provided by Poland.
Agata Zadrozna of TNS OBOP told Polskie
Radio [Polish Radio], "It seems the reason for this is the sense of
growing prosperity of the country. We see that there’s more states
that are worse off than us. Other countries once helped us and now
that we are one of the richer states, we should help others. We feel
that we can earmark some of our tax money for this assistance."
Most respondents of the survey think
that giving assistance to poorer states is Poland’s moral duty. They
think that the biggest challenge the world is faced with today is
the struggle against AIDS and the provision of potable water to
everyone, think the respondents. The continent requiring most
attention is Africa, they say. Opponents of the idea, however, state
that the country is not rich enough to provide such help.
Warsaw (PMN)—The town of New York is
among a number of places that was wiped off the Polish map as Poland
changed its calendar to 2010. The minister of internal affairs and
administration made the decision to wipe off the map place names
that were merely customary or unused. Among these places were New
York, Homily and In The Field, the literal translations of the small
Polish towns that have been forgotten. As of the new year, 365
places ceased to exist on maps.
Polish journalists and film crews
looking for displaced Polish citizens in New York. They found that
the town, which was all but boarded up and shut down years ago, was
going to be wiped off a map it was never even on. It turned out that
New York was a nickname given to the area by a former parish priest,
now deceased, many years ago. For the most part, the nickname died
with him. Many young New Yorkers did not even know about New York.
The background story is that the parish
priest was planning his Christmas caroling one year and announced
that first he would be downtown, then in "Szmacionie" at the edges
of the village and finally in New York, beyond the forest,
periphery. But why he called it that will remain a mystery. It may
have been just an ironic remark.
Edinburgh, Scotland (PMN)—The
Scotsman reported on January 26, 2010, that the Polish Catholic
Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek claims Jews have stolen the tragedy of the
Holocaust and exploited it as a propaganda weapon to gain
"unjustified advantages." Pieronek made the remarks during an
interview with the Pontifex.Roma website at
http://www.pontifex.roma.it
. They were published only hours before Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Poland to take part in commemorations
to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz
death camp.
While stressing that the majority of
people who died in Nazi Germany’s death camps had been Jewish,
Bishop Pieronek, 75, a well-known figure in Poland, criticized Jews
for apparently claiming ownership of the slaughter at the exclusion
of other ethnic groups and nationalities who perished.
"Undoubtedly, most of those who died in
the camps were Jews, but also on the list were Poles, Gypsies,
Italians and Catholics. It should not be that one group steals this
tragedy and uses it for propaganda purposes," the bishop was quoted
as saying. He then added that the Holocaust had been used as a
"propaganda weapon" by Jews to achieve "often unjustified
advantages".
In comments that could infuriate Israel
still further, Pieronek went on to suggest that Jewish manipulation
of the Holocaust had helped to silence international criticism of
Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
The Bishop went on to say, "the Jews,
have a good press, because of their powerful financial resources,
extremely powerful through the unconditional support of the United
States. And this promotes a kind of arrogance, which I consider to
be unbearable."
Although Jerusalem and Warsaw enjoy
good relations, some Jews accuse Poles of having had a role in the
Holocaust, and still suspect the country of harboring anti-Semitic
sentiments. Many Poles find such accusations insulting. They say
people who make them are ignorant of the tremendous suffering Nazi
forces inflicted on Poland during the war and that thousands of
Poles died helping Jews. They also point to the fact their country
now has a flourishing, if small, Jewish community.
Bishop Pieronek later claimed that the
internet article was written without proper permission. He said some
statements were added by the journalist who conducted the interview.