Tel-Chai Nation

The Polish government finally made some changes to its ill-advised law on how to comment about anybody's role in the Holocaust there:

Poland on Wednesday amended a controversial Holocaust law that sparked outrage in Israel by imposing jail terms on anyone claiming the government was responsible for Nazi German war crimes.

The amendment removes fines or criminal penalties of up to three years in prison for anyone found guilty of ascribing Nazi crimes to the Polish nation or state.

Lawmakers in Poland’s right-wing dominated lower house of parliament voted 388 in favour of the amendment, with 25 against and five abstentions.

The Senate is expected to adopt the amendment later on Wednesday before it is signed into law by the president.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki proposed the changes out of the blue earlier on Wednesday, telling MPs that the criminal penalties had “stirred so much controversy they began to be counterproductive.”

The law, passed by Poland’s Senate in February made it a criminal offense to ascribe “responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich”.

To put anybody in prison over stating facts is stunningly insane and does as much harm as nazism itself. It's also the kind of thing that gives Europe a bad name, and there's only so many countries there that still have archaic laws that have to be done away with. Poland's current steps are a positive sign for now.

Labels: anti-semitism, Europe, germany, Israel, Moonbattery, poland, political corruption