New Polish law equates Communist and Nazi symbols:
Europe has long been condemning the communist regime, but none of the countries has gone as far as Poland, where a law was signed allowing people to be fined or imprisoned for keeping and buying communist symbols.Twenty years after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the Polish government are about to completely erase memories of the Cold War past and make everything from the hammer and sickle and red flag to trendy Che Guevara t-shirts and posters illegal.
On Friday, President Lech Kaczynski approved an amendment to the criminal code which outlaws production, possession, spread and sale of items or recordings containing symbols of communism. Anyone who disobeys the law – for instance, waves a red flag singing The Internationale in the centre of Warsaw – can be fined or even sent to jail for up to two years.
However, communist attributes can still be used for artistic, research and educational purposes. Collectors will not be punished either. The law was put forward by the opposition Law and Justice Party and was passed by the Polish parliament in early November.
“Communism was a genocidal system that led to the murder of tens of millions of people,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski – the president’s twin brother and the head of the party – said back then. “No symbol of communism has a right to exist in Poland, because these are symbols of a genocidal system that should be compared to German Nazism.”
