Argentinian paper sued under new Holocaust law

A group called Polish League Against Defamation has sued an Argentinian daily Pagina 12 under the recently imposed so-called Holocaust law. The paper published a story back in December about the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 in which Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in the massacre of at least 340 Jews while using pictures of anticommunist underground Cursed Soldiers. “The combination of these two threads: information about the crime on Jews in Jedwabne during the German occupation and the presentation of fallen soldiers of the independence underground is manipulation, an act to the detriment of the Polish nation,” the organization said in a statement. The new law which sparked protests from both the US and Israel, according to its proponents, is to prevent people for accusing the Polish nation “against the facts of being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich.” But critics say the legislation could hinder debating history, thus harming freedom of expression and opening the way to Holocaust denial. While Pagina said that it did not receive any legal communications, other Argentinian media outlets started reposting the article in a sign of solidarity. “If successful, this attempt at international censorship could threaten freedom of expression worldwide,” the article read. When the bill was signed into the law by President Andrzej Duda and sent to the Constitutional Tribunal to verify if it’s not in breach of Polish constitution, ruling politicians said that it won’t be imposed until the Tribunal gives its ruling. Despite that, Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik said he hoped the case would go to court. “The organization has a right to submit such a notice. If the court decides the complaint is admissible, and it should do so, then there will be a court case,” he said.