The bill that has angered Israel by imposing a jail term for anyone who accuses Poland of being complicit in the Holocaust.
The US State Department has urged Poland “to reevaluate the legislation in light of its potential impact on the principle of free speech.”
Reacting to President Duda’s move, Israel‘s foreign ministry said it hoped that “changes and corrections” would be made to the Polish anti-defamation law.
In Poland, the new rules are seen as a way of fighting the use of the phrase “Polish death camps”, which many say implies the country’s involvement in the Holocaust.
Poland has long fought the use of such phrases, which have often appeared in foreign media in relation to Nazi German-run extermination camps located in occupied Polish territory during World War II. Poland’s ruling conservatives have said such phrases distort history.
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