Friday, August 31, 2018

Poland: New provocative effort by the government to outlaw the Communist Party

KKE MEP Kostas Papadakis (left); Anti-communist banner
by fascist groups in Poland.
Poland's bourgeois government continues its provocative anti-communist policy, this time by renewing the effort to outlaw the country's Communist Party (CPP) and ban its symbols. This new effort by Warsaw was denounced by the Communist Party of Greece at the European Parliament

More specifically, the KKE MEP Kostas Papadakis submitted to the European Commission a question regarding the unacceptable and anti-democratic initiative of the Polish government.

In his question, the KKE MEP points out that after a request made by Poland's Ministry of Justice, a working group of the Polish Parliament proposed an amendment of the criminal law (article 256, p.2 of the Criminal Law) aiming at the prohibition of the communist symbols. This tactic is based on the outrageous and unhistorical equation of Communism with Fascism. 

Papadakis mentions that the above article had been amended in 2009 and led to a prohibition of the communist symbols, but the law had been cancelled in 2011 due to its unconstitutional nature. 

In his question, the KKE MEP says: "This development comes at the same time when the Constitutional Court of Poland (which is controlled by the Polish government) is going to "investigate" the issue of the legality of the Communist Party's existence, after a relevant request of a specific reactionary organization". 

Kostas Papadakis denounces that this co-ordinated - by the Polish government- effort to outlaw the Communist Party of Poland and to prohibit communist symbols consists part of the increasing anti-communist campaign of the EU. The KKE MEP also points out that this effort "reveals the common aspiration to put obstacles in the organized struggle against the system of capitalist profitability which both the EU and its governments serve and to erase from the memory of the working people the achievements of socialism".

The KKE asks from the European Commission to clarify its position on the new effort of the Polish government to ban the communist symbols and the Communist Party, taking into account that similar initiatives had been undertaken by other EU member-states as well.