Grzegorz Braun, a far-right Polish MP, was filmed on Tuesday December 12 emptying a fire extinguisher on a hanukkia, a nine-branched candlestick symbol of Judaism, in the middle of Parliament.
“An unacceptable thing happened, which should never happen again, it’s a shame,” Poland’s new Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters, as Parliament Speaker expelled Grzegorz Braun for the act “racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.”
Channel TVN24 broadcast footage of Braun with a red fire extinguisher putting out the fire and causing smoke or mist in the area. Parliamentary work was temporarily suspended. After the incident, the candles were relighted.
Right all the wrongs
Grzegorz Braun, a pro-Russian member of Konfederacja (“the confederation”), has in the past claimed that there was a plot to turn Poland into a “Jewish state.”
In October, Poland’s pro-European coalition won a parliamentary majority, defeating the populist Law and Justice (PiS) and Konfederacja (far-right) parties combined. In his speech given to MPs on Tuesday, Donald Tusk, who has just been elected to the post of Prime Minister, called on the world for “total mobilization” in favor of Ukraine in the face of the Russian offensive and assured to work “effectively in favor of kyiv”.
Describing the outgoing nationalist administration as years of “darkness”, Mr Tusk said on Monday his government would work to “right all wrongs”.
