Polish opposition wants to amend disputed Holocaust bill

Warsaw (AFP) - Poland's main opposition party Tuesday tabled an amendment to the government's controversial Holocaust bill, which was meant to defend Warsaw's image abroad but instead stoked tensions with Israel, Ukraine and the US.

However, the liberal Civic Platform (PO) party's proposal has no chance of being adopted since the governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party controls both houses of parliament.

"The political crisis triggered by clumsy and disastrous diplomacy, by thoughtless remarks, has brought us to a point where we politicians are forced to react," Platform leader Grzegorz Schetyna told reporters.

"We are proposing a draft amendment that should correct the mistakes."

The Holocaust legislation, which takes effect next week, penalises statements attributing Nazi German crimes to the Polish state with a jail sentence of up to three years.

But Israel sees it as a bid to deny the participation of individual Poles in the extermination of Jews, an accusation rejected by Warsaw.

Critics also worry that because of vague wording the legislation could open the door to prosecuting Holocaust survivors for their testimony.

Poland's opposition suggests replacing the bill's controversial passage with penalties against "anyone who publicly and contrary to the facts attributes to the Polish state responsibility or co-responsibility for the German Third Reich's creation of concentration and death camps, as well as for the genocide that took place there, or who minimises to a flagrant degree the responsibility of the real authors of these crimes by using the terms 'Polish death camps' and 'Polish concentration camps'."

Source: Yahoo News