WARSAW, Feb 1 : Poland's senate has backed legislation regulating Holocaust speech, a move that risks opening a diplomatic rift with Israel and the United States with the new legislation.
The bill, proposed by the ruling Law and Justice party and voted for early on Thursday, calls for up to three years in prison for any intentional attempt to attribute the crimes of Nazi Germany to the Polish state or people. Polish President Andrzej Duda now has 21 days to sign it into law.
Poland was attacked and occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II, losing six million of its citizens including three million of its Jews, who numbered 3.2 million before the conflict. But The EU member states' governing nationalists, who came to power in 2015, have sought to push back against suggestions of Polish complicity in the Nazis' campaign to eradicate Jews.
Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights office said on Wednesday it had identified 206 companies so far doing business linked to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where it said violations against Palestinians are "pervasive and devastating".
The report is politically sensitive because companies in the U.N. database could be targeted for boycotts or divestment aimed at stepping up pressure on Israel over its settlements, which most countries and the world body view as illegal. -AFP
