While there are numerous reports of tampering and confusion regarding foreign ballots, as Polish people who live abroad – from the U.S. to the different European Union states – get to participate, it should also be stressed what the election means for Poland. Duda and the Prawo I Sprawiedliwosc (PiS) represent the worst elements of reaction that have come out since the 1989 fall of the People’s Republic of Poland, which ended socialism.

Just a brief list of controversies connected to the PiS-led administration since 2015 includes their repeated attempts to further restrict access to abortion despite Poland already having some of the most restrictive laws on abortion; their refusal to allow Syrian refugees settle in Poland; the continued attack against leftist organizers and activists by attempting to make the KPP, the Communist Party of Poland, and any Marxist-Leninist organizing illegal; illegally attempting to sack Constitutional Judges the PiS did not place in order to seat PiS-lackeys in 2015 and 2017; and finally their sickening attacks on the LGBTQ+ community in Poland, which has led to one third of the country, specifically 100 municipalities and five “vovoidships” (think Polish equivalent of states) declaring themselves “LGBT Ideology-Free Zones” as of July 2020.

Duda himself, on the campaign trail a day before the first round of elections, had called the LGBTQ+ community “worse than communism!” And all the forces of reaction, from ‘trade union’ Solidarnosc that toppled the People’s Republic via CIA funding to the hyper-conservative sections of the Catholic Church, have gathered around in supporting the PiS in their attempt to make Poland as it ‘once’ was. Poland’s independence day, November 11, has become a prop for these reactionaries – as they have infamously gathered in Warszawa for years on end with thousands saying “Pure Poland, white Poland,” and to make Poland remain “White, Catholic and Polish!”

We will need to give our support and solidarity with those in Poland fighting against the reactionary regime of Andrzej Duda and the PiS.

Nie dla Duda, Nie dla Faszyzmu, Wolna Polska!

No Duda, No Fascism, Free Poland!

#Poland #Europe #CommunistPartyOfPoland

The prosecution of Polish communists is outrageous and reeks of political repression. According to the Polish government’s accusation, the Communist Party’s newspaper Brzask published articles “directly related with the communist system and Marxism-Leninism, which in the context of historical experience is contradictory with democratic values.” Allegations were thrown at the Party in 2011 and 2013 but the government’s lead prosecutor would not hear the case. It was only when the right-wing Law and Justice Party won recent elections did the new prosecutor general politicize the case and proceed with the charges.

Also, the CPP members were not given a regular trial. They had no opportunity to defend themselves. The court did not use a standard judgment procedure and based the court ruling on the charge alone. A Communist Party of Poland member, Bartosz Bieszczad, told Fight Back!, “The charge was not based on a lawyer’s assessment but an interpretation from an ‘expert’ from the Institute of National Memory.”

The sentencing comes just months before the NATO Summit is set to take place in Poland July 8-9. Bieszczad put the conviction in context as many inside Poland are critical of the government’s bowing down to every wish of the EU, NATO, and the U.S. “The EU tries to present or force a certain framework within which you can do politics and everything outside that framework is considered illegal,” stated Bieszczad

Bieszczad continued, “It is an attempt to eradicate and destroy completely the seeds of future change in our country.”

Protests condemning the political repression by the Polish government have taken place in front of Polish embassies in Belgrade, Serbia and Moscow, Russia.

#Poland #PoliticalRepression #CommunistPartyOfPoland