Opposition MPs appeal to European body over 'torturing' of jailed ex-minister
MPs of Law and Justice (PiS), Poland's main opposition party, have said they will notify the Committee for the Prevention of Torture about what they called "torturing" of a former minister while in jail, who was force-fed before being pardoned by the country's president and then released.
A letter describing an unnecessary and painful force-feeding procedure performed against Mariusz Kaminski, who went on hunger strike as soon as he was detained, was to be sent to the European body later on Thursday, according to a PiS MP, Arkadiusz Mularczyk.
"We are informing the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) that torture was used against political prisoners in Poland," he said.
Kaminski, the interior minister in the previous government, and his deputy Maciej Wasik, were each sentenced to two years in prison in December 2023 for abuse of power. President Andrzej Duda pardoned the men on Tuesday and they were promptly released from detention, where they had both staged hunger strikes since the start of their confinement in early January.
On Tuesday afternoon Kaminski's son, Kacper, announced on the X platform that his father had been force-fed through a nasal tube after having refused food for two weeks.
Mularczyk said having now information provided by Mariusz Kaminski himself "we have no doubt that the attempt to feed him, intubate him, through the nose and then through the esophagus, violated the principles that are included in the Human Rights Convention.
"We can treat it as torture. Due to the respiratory obstruction ... repeated attempts were abandoned and he was forcibly intubated through the mouth. In our opinion, these actions violated Article 40 of the European Convention on Human Rights", he added.
Mularczyk also said that PiS MPs raised the issue of Kaminski's and Wasik's detention at the Wednesday session of the Council of Europe.
"We have submitted a draft resolution questioning the validity and legality of their detention. We demand that the Council of Europe conduct an investigation into this matter," he added. (PAP)
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