“We, Poles responsible for Poland’s present and future, cannot tolerate the renewed emergence of Nazi ideology in Ukraine today, because it is a mortal danger to us now and to future generations,” Przemysław Czarnek, a Law and Justice MP and the party’s candidate for prime minister, said today in the Sejm.
The Sejm is holding the first reading of a presidential draft amendment to the acts on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, and to the Criminal Code.
The amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance is intended to “clarify the provisions defining the concept of crimes committed by members and collaborators of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Bandera faction, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, as well as other Ukrainian formations collaborating with the Third German Reich,” with the aim of countering the spread of false claims in this regard. The proposed changes to the Criminal Code would add the following phrase to the article that provides for a penalty of up to three years’ imprisonment for promoting totalitarian ideologies and inciting hatred: “The same penalty shall apply to anyone who publicly promotes (…) the ideology of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Bandera faction, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or an ideology calling for the use of violence in order to influence political or social life.”
During the debate on the bill, Prof. Przemysław Czarnek, a Law and Justice MP and the party’s candidate for prime minister, thanked the president for the proposal. He added that an identical Law and Justice bill, submitted in 2024, had become stuck in a Sejm committee.
“This bill is not about the past; it is about the future. The memory of those brutally murdered in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland is especially important, but there is something more at stake. In the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, the framers limited political pluralism. It states that the glorification of Nazism, fascism, and communism is prohibited. What is the ideology of Banderism, as clarified in this act?”
he asked.
He quoted a passage from the military doctrine of the OUN by Mykhailo Kolodzinsky.
“How is this different from German Nazism? In no way. This is Nazism in its purest form, Ukrainian Nazism. If President Karnowski [Jacek Karnowski, Civic Coalition MP] says this is nonsense, if that side of the political scene says that Ukrainian Nazism can be tolerated today, then it also tolerates German Nazism. This is not about the past. We, Poles responsible for Poland’s present and future, cannot tolerate the renewed emergence of Nazi ideology in Ukraine today, because it is a mortal danger to us now and to future generations,”
Czarnek said.
He recalled that Law and Justice had sought to preserve the truth about Volhynia.
“By rejecting this draft law, the majority of the coalition is allowing Nazism to be promoted in today’s world. This is a scandal on the part of this governing camp. Today, we cannot hesitate over whether to support this bill. After what Zelensky has done, after the Ukrainian state has glorified Ukrainian Nazis from the OUN-UPA in its pantheon, we have a sacred duty to say that Ukraine today, through the decisions of the corrupt Zelensky, is placing itself outside the circle of civilized countries, and we will defend that civilization,”
the Law and Justice MP said.