Warsaw, Poland: Polish Prosecutor probes into allegations of antisemitism against a Catholic priest
Prosecutors in the Polish city of Torun decided not to charge Roman Catholic priest Tadeusz Rydzyk for antisemitic comments due to a lack of evidence. According to a prosecutor’s statement, Rydzyk’s comments “did not contain elements prohibited by the law.” Polish law prohibits the public incitement of racial hatred, such as antisemitism.
Tadeusz Rydzyk heads the Catholic nationalist Radio Maryia, known for its antisemitic comments, as well as a media school, the Nasz Dziennik, and a television station.
In July 2007 Polish media publicized a recording of Rydzyk that students made during a course at the media school in Torun. In this recording the priest accused the Polish President Lech Kaczynski for giving in to Jewish demands for compensation of property lost in the Holocaust: “You know what the issue for Poland is to give (Jews) 65 billion dollars. They’ll come and will say give me that coat. Take off those trousers! Give those shoes!” He added that the Jedwabne case – a pogrom of Jews in 1941 which the Polish National Institute of Remembrance established as being committed by Poles - was used by Jews to extort 65 billion dollars from Poland.
David Peleg, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, called the comments “the worst case of anti-Jewish language” Poland has seen since an antisemitic campaign in 1968.
Source: www.ejpress.org, 06-13-2008
