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Polish PM urges respect, unity after mayor’s slaying

PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki 21.01.2019 07:30
Poland’s prime minister has called for mutual respect and an end to bitter political divisions in the country in the wake of the fatal stabbing of a popular mayor.
Mateusz Morawiecki. Photo: PAP/Paweł TopolskiMateusz Morawiecki. Photo: PAP/Paweł Topolski

Speaking at a public event on Sunday, Mateusz Morawiecki appealed to "all politicians, opinion shapers, people in the media and in the world of culture” to “make our public life better, and make public debate calmer, wiser and full of due respect for one another."

He said Poles needed “national reconciliation and accord" after the mayor’s death.

Paweł Adamowicz, 53, mayor of the northern Polish port city of Gdańsk, died last Monday from severe wounds inflicted by a knifeman during a high-profile annual fundraiser called the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity.

Adamowicz’s killing, which made international headlines, caused shock in Poland and prompted calls for an end to hate speech in a country bitterly divided politically.

Morawiecki was among top political figures from Poland and abroad who on Saturday took part in a funeral service for Adamowicz.

In a sermon at the service, Archbishop Sławoj Leszek Głódź said the mayor's killing was seen by many as a “powerful, sudden, unceasing alarm bell” signaling the need to weed out the “language of contempt, humiliation, depreciation” from Polish politics and society.

Thousands of mourners last week paid tribute to the slain politician, whose violent death left people in shock and searching for answers.

Morawiecki said on Sunday that Adamowicz’s death was a "great evil" and that efforts should be made to turn it into something positive, a “breakthrough moment” for the country.

Meanwhile, Adamowicz’s widow was on Sunday handed a posthumous award for her husband "for his good works, which cost him his life.”

The award is named after Polish World War II hero Jan Karski.

Karski, who died in 2000 at the age of 86, was a diplomat, army officer and emissary of Polish underground organisations during the Nazi German occupation of Poland.

(gs_pk)

Source: TVP Info, PAP

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