Former Polish Interior Minister on hunger strike in prison

The high-profile arrests, which took place inside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw on Tuesday while President Andrzej Duda was elsewhere in the city, have sparked a strong reaction in Poland with protests lasting into Wednesday.

Protesters supporting former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his deputy Maciej Wasik in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland on January 9, 2024. Photo: Kuba Atys

“I declare that I consider my sentence… as an act of political revenge,” Mr. Kaminski said at a press conference on Wednesday morning. “As a political prisoner, I have been on hunger strike since the first day of my imprisonment.”

On Wednesday evening, Mr Wasik’s wife told Republika TV that her husband had also begun a hunger strike. “He said he felt the need to do it, that it was necessary,” she said after meeting her husband in prison on Wednesday.

“These people behave as if the Presidential Palace were a place of asylum, a territory where Polish law does not apply. And no, it is not,” current Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski told private TV station TVN24.

Mr Kaminski's lawyer told private radio station RMF FM that he was preparing to appeal his client's detention on Tuesday, as well as challenge the court's jail order.

Former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski attends a session at the Polish Parliament in Warsaw, Poland on December 21, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Former Minister Kaminski, who is also a lawmaker, was convicted of abuse of power for allowing agents under his command to use bait during an investigation. He denies wrongdoing.

Mr Kaminski was pardoned by President Duda in 2015 and was later appointed interior minister. However, last year the Supreme Court said the case should be reopened. Mr Kaminski and Mr Wasik were subsequently sentenced to two years in prison by a lower court in December.

Polish ombudsman Marcin Wiacek was quoted by state news agency PAP as saying that under criminal law, “a detainee has no right to refuse a meal. If he does so, he will be given diagnostic procedures and medical care.”

President Duda said on Wednesday that he "will not rest" until Kaminski and Wasik are freed and said he believed their pardon in 2015 was constitutional.

A rally in support of Kaminski and Wasik outside the Polish presidential palace on Tuesday evening turned into a protest. Many also gathered near the police station where the two former officials were detained and later the Warsaw prison where they were being held.

Huy Hoang (according to Reuters)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/cuu-bo-truong-noi-vu-ba-lan-tuyet-thuc-trong-tu-post280458.html