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Previous gov't condoned 'recruitment bases for terrorists' in Poland: official

PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek 07.06.2017 12:54
The previous government condoned "recruitment bases for terrorists being created in Poland” by agreeing to accept migrants, the Polish interior minister has said.
Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Błaszczak. Photo: Flickr.com/MSWiA (CC BY-ND 2.0)Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Błaszczak. Photo: Flickr.com/MSWiA (CC BY-ND 2.0)

But Interior Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said a controversial new anti-terror law that was criticised by the opposition and migration policy are working.

“Based on the anti-terror law a number of people have been deported from Poland… on suspicions of ties with terrorist organisations – Muslim-focused organisations, dangerous organisations,” Błaszczak said.

Błaszczak said the previous government, which promised that Poland would accept some 6,200 refugees in a bid to ease the 2015 migration crisis, “condoned… recruitment bases for terrorists being created in Poland”.

He added that the current Law and Justice (PiS) government has prevented thousands of Muslim migrants from settling in the country by blocking for security reasons the European Union’s refugee relocation plan.

In September 2015, Poland’s previous government and the remaining EU leaders agreed that each country would accept a number of asylum seekers over two years to alleviate the pressure on Greece and Italy, which have seen the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East.

EU leaders agreed to relocate a total of about 100,000 refugees of more than two million people who arrived in Europe since 2015.

However, only 14,000 migrants from refugee camps in countries along the Mediterranean coast have been relocated in the EU.

According to the European Commission, Poland was one of a few countries that did not accept any people from migrant camps in Italy and Greece, while Malta and Finland are the only countries to have fulfilled their obligations.

Poland passed a new anti-terror last year ahead of World Youth Day which saw hundreds of thousands of young Catholic pilgrims visit Kraków.

But NGOs in Poland and abroad have criticizedthe law, which they claimed was passed without public consultation and in secrecy.
The US-based Human Rights First organizationsaid the law was inconsistent with the Polish constitution and allowed any foreign national in Poland to be surveilled as a terror suspect.

But NGOs in Poland and abroad criticised the law claiming that it was passed without public consultation and veiled in secrecy.

The US-based Human Rights First organisation said the law was inconsistent with the Polish constitution and allowed any foreign national in Poland to be monitored as a terror suspect at any time.

(vb/pk)

Source: PAP

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