Far-right Polish politician Paweł Kukiz has claimed that “a Jewish banker” is funding demonstrations in twenty cities organised by the newly-created Committee for the Defence of Democracy. The demonstrations opposed a law rushed through after Polish elections in October that paved the way for the appointment of five new judges to the Constitutional Tribunal.
Kukiz told Zet Radio: “Apparently the march was financed somehow from the outside. PLN150 million [$38 million] are to be given by the Jews, the Jewish banker, in organisation of the march.”
The Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland said the remark that the demonstrations were funded by “a Jewish banker” required a “firm reaction” from President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Beata Szydło, saying: “For the first time since [Poland’s] democratic elections in 1989, a politician in parliament, who has run for the presidency, has used such obvious antisemitic rhetoric.”
The conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) party, which won the October general election,
has been accused of undermining the independence of Poland’s judiciary. Although Kukiz’s anti-establishment Kukiz’15 grouping was formed in July and came third in the parliamentary election, it is broadly aligned on some issues with the Law and Justice party.
Sources: Radio Poland and JTA
