Sejm speaker backs decision to keep far-right MEP out of parliament
Wlodzimierz Czarzasty, newly-appointed Speaker of the Polish Sejm, the lower house, pledged to uphold the ban on far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun entering parliament following his controversial remarks about the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
Czarzasty's Sunday comment followed Braun's appearance near the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in Oswiecim, southern Poland, where he delivered a speech on Saturday, claiming: "The territory of the German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau is de facto an extraterritorial area. This is no longer the Polish state where Poles are sovereign and free."
On Sunday, Czarzasty condemned "what happened in Oswiecim yesterday," referring to the MEP's remarks.
"What Braun is doing, his attitude towards Jews, is simply a scandal," the Sejm speaker said in Poznan, western Poland, adding that people cannot be "treated this way" just because, in Braun's view, they "are different" from him.
"Therefore, I will uphold [former] Speaker Szymon Holownia's decision not to allow Braun into the Sejm," announced Czarzasty. Czarzasty took over the function from Holownia on November 18.
Braun has been at the centre of several high-profile controversies, including an incident in late 2023 when he blew out the candles on a Jewish menorah with a fire extinguisher during a Hanukkah ceremony in the Polish parliament. He once tried to justify his behaviour in a YouTube interview, calling the Jewish festival a celebration hostile to Polish Catholics and was later accused of inciting religious hatred and offending religious feelings.
His other provocative actions include vandalising a Christmas tree adorned with EU and Ukrainian flags, trampling on the EU flag, disrupting a lecture by a German historian, and holding a doctor captive for over an hour in protest of an abortion she had performed. Braun also physically assaulted the head of the National Institute of Cardiology in Warsaw.
Earlier this month, the European Parliament waived Braun's immunity, allowing national judicial authorities to proceed with investigation or prosecution. (PAP)
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