polish news ale in english

cross-postowane z: https://biglemmowski.win/post/5121734

The court in the southwestern city of Wroclaw found the 51-year-old man, identified only as Serhyi S., guilty of being part of a criminal ring and of preparing to set fire to various structures in the city.

cross-postowane z: https://lemmy.world/post/24822765

Summary

Polish President Andrzej Duda urged against resuming Russian gas supplies to Western Europe, even if a peace deal with Ukraine is reached.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Duda called for the dismantling of Nord Stream pipelines to prevent European dependence on Russia, citing energy, military, and economic threats.

He emphasized that no peace talks should occur without Ukraine's participation and condemned Russia's territorial claims as violations of international law.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/30116822

A Polish man is taking Germany to court over checks at the German-Polish border. He says that it's not just because they make life difficult, but also because they contravene EU law.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/30943609

Officials apparently became aware of the problem when the weapons were found sitting in the IKEA warehouse, at which point someone called the military to ask “when they would collect their mines.”

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/1hvcilt/best_country_in_the_world_rule/

An official ceremony to celebrate the Jewish festival of Hanukkah has been held in Poland’s parliament, one year on from when the same event was attacked with a fire extinguisher by far-right MP Grzegorz Braun.

Braun, who is now a member of the European Parliament, led a protest outside the building under the title “This is Poland, not Polin” – a slogan that uses the Hebrew name for Poland to suggest that Jews are trying to control the country.

cross-postowane z: https://beehaw.org/post/17645083

Archived

Poland decided to add several media and telecommunication firms to its list of strategic companies, which means their takeover will not be possible without government consent, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday.

Tusk had earlier said that private broadcasters TVN, owned by U.S. company Warner Discovery, and Polsat would be added to the list, highlighting increased concern about foreign interference. Tusk cited "hybrid war" against countries in the region.

Romania's top court annulled an ongoing presidential election this month after accusations of Russian meddling, particularly on social media. Russia denies interfering in elections in foreign countries.

"We adopted a regulation... on the basis of which we added to a list of entities subject to protection... companies such as Cyfrowy Polsat, P4 - the company that operates Play, TVN, Polsat television, T-Mobile and WB Electronics," Tusk said on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting. "This list already includes previously protected companies... such as Tauron Polska, Orlen, Emitel, Grupa Azoty, Gaspol. I do not need to justify the necessity for protection against the risk of these companies, which are key to the security of the Polish state, falling into the wrong hands."

Poland's list of strategic companies included mostly energy, chemical companies until now.

cross-postowane z: https://sh.itjust.works/post/28860783

At its foot, Polish soldiers, hooded and carrying machine guns, patrol the border -- a flashpoint between Warsaw and Minsk whom Poland had blamed for orchestrating the influx of migrants. "Migration is artificially directed here," said Michal Bura, a spokesman for the Podlasie region border guards, joining the patrol in his four-wheel drive. "The Belarusian services help the migrants, transport them from one place to another, and equip them with tools they need to cross this barrier, such as pliers, hacksaws, and ladders," he added.

This month, the five-metre-high (16-foot) metal barrier along the border built in 2022 has been reinforced with metal bars and another layer of barbed wire. Warsaw has also installed new cameras every 200 metres along the fence to detect migrants before they even attempt to cross it.

Since 2021, Poland has seen thousands of migrants and refugees, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, attempting to enter the EU and NATO country through Belarus. Warsaw has called it a hybrid operation by Belarus and its ally Russia to increase migratory pressure and thereby destabilise the EU.

Fearing Russia, Poland has also announced it would spend over 2.3 billion euros on an "eastern shield" -- a system of military fortifications along the border, which will make it even more difficult for migrants to cross. But, according to border guards, while the overall number of crossings fell as winter arrived, it had already reached 28,500 by mid-November compared with 26,000 in total last year.

Right in the middle of the Europe's largest primeval forest of Bialowieza, Aleksandra Chrzanowska packed into plastic bags what remained of a former makeshift migrant camp -- a torn emergency blanket, medicines, shoes hidden under leaves wet from the snow. "It takes migrants between 30 hours and a week to get here. It all depends on their physical condition, whether they have children with them, and what the weather is like," said Chrzanowska, a member of Grupa Granica, a nonprofit helping migrants in distress. Its volunteers bring them water, food, dry clothes, and medicine. In case of emergency or threat to life, they administer first aid, help migrants fill out asylum application forms or serve as translators in communication with the authorities. "In the long term, this barrier, these electronic installations, do not change anything," said Chrzanowska, who added no real migration policy was implemented by the government.

According to rights groups, migrants at the border are increasingly subjected to police violence, with some suffering injuries inflicted by dog bites or rubber bullets. Some migrants have also injured themselves by jumping from the top of the fence. "Half of the patients we treat have physical injuries and mental trauma resulting from crossing the border," Uriel Mazzoli, head of Doctors Without Borders Mission in Poland (MSF), told AFP.

Border guards deny the accusations, saying that they limit themselves to responding to violence coming from migrants. Poland said at least 63 soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the year while stopping migrants from crossing the border. In June, a Polish soldier was fatally stabbed through the fence. According to the rights groups' estimates, at least 88 migrants have died on the Polish-Belarusian border since the migration influx has intensified.

Last month, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a migration rules overhaul involving a temporary suspension of asylum rights for irregular migrants. For Chrzanowska, this announcement was "very worrying", as it would mean "an absolute violation of fundamental human rights, of the right to seek international protection."

According to the MSF official, the infrastructure installed by Poland on its eastern border traps people in a no-man's-land between the two countries.