Polish defence ministry will not press for demotion of communist-era officers
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
11.04.2018 12:01
Poland’s Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said on Wednesday that his ministry would not put forward a new plan to strip top communist-era military officers of their ranks.
President Andrzej Duda (right). Photo: PAP/Paweł Supernak
"We consider the question closed," Błaszczak said. He added that any new legislation on the issue was now a matter for the president.
Polish President Andrzej Duda at the end of last month vetoed a bill that sought to demote communist-era officers, some of them posthumously.
Duda said that those demoted would not have been able to defend themselves or appeal against such a decision.
After Poland’s conservative government adopted the plan in early March, officials described it as an act of historical justice.
The legislation specifically aimed to strip former communist strongman Wojciech Jaruzelski and ex-Interior Minister Czesław Kiszczak of their generals' stars.
Jaruzelski was Poland’s last communist-era president and was instrumental in imposing martial law in 1981. He died in 2014.
Kiszczak also played a key role in imposing martial law and suppressing the Solidarity pro-democracy movement in Poland. He died in 2015.
A parliamentary report compiled in the early 1990s said more than 90 people were killed during martial law, which was introduced on December 13, 1981 and officially ended on July 22, 1983.
Duda hails from Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
(pk/gs)
Source: IAR