The persecution against the Communist Party of Poland continues. The trial against the members of the editorial board of the party's newspaper "Brzask" is scheduled to restart. The first court session will be held on the 3rd of March.
The trial continues for over 4 years despite the acquittal verdict of the court issued last year. The appeal of the prosecutor was a basis for restarting the trial. For the last 4 years, the prosecutors' office is directly subordinated to the government. This trial is a part of a campaign made by the state authorities to illegalize the Communist Party of Poland.
Another anti-communist attack is an attempt to criminalize the communist activity by changes of the penal code. The amended article 256 of the code bans communism and equates it with Nazism and fascism, as previously it included it among the "totalitarian systems”.
In recent years this article was used very widely as shows the trial of the CPP and "Brzask". The new version of the law bans the ideology, symbols or any other contents (prints, recordings) associated with communism. The new code also increases the penalty from 2 to 3 years of imprisonment. These changes were voted by parliament last year and were sent to the Constitutional Court.
The repressions are accompanied by the anti-communist policy of rewriting history and removing monuments and names of the streets associated with communism and workers' movement from the public space. A serious part of these renaming of streets were recalled under the protests that triggerred in Poland.
We demand all the prosecutions against the communists and penalization of communist ideas in Poland to be stopped immediately and all the anticommunist laws to be withdrawn.
We call the communist parties for the international day of action on 2nd of March and solidarity protests against the political persecution by sending petitions and/or organising manifestations in front of Polish embassies around the world.
