Poland's president to sign Holocaust speech bill into law, defying critics

Poland's president said Tuesdayhe will sign into law a bill imposing jail terms for suggestingthe country was complicit in the Holocaust, defying criticismfrom Israel, the United States and activists.

Andrzej Duda said in a televised address the legislationwould ensure Poland's "dignity and historical truth."

Poland's right-wing government says the law is needed toprotect the reputation of its citizens and make sure they arerecognized as victims not perpetrators of Nazi aggression during the Second World War.

• Warsaw lawmakers pass Holocaust bill to restrict term 'Polish death camps'

Israel has said the law would curb free speech, criminalizebasic historical facts and stop any discussion on the role thatsome Poles played in Nazi crimes. Activists say the passage ofthe bill has encouraged a rise in anti-Semitism.

More than three million of Poland's 3.2 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, accounting for about half of the Jewskilled in the Holocaust. Jews from across the continent weresent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germansin Poland, including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

The Polish measure would impose prison sentences of up tothree years for mentioning the term "Polish death camps"and suggesting "publicly and against the facts"that the Polishnation or state was complicit in Nazi Germany'scrimes.

President Duda said the bill would protect Poland'sinterests "so that we are not being slandered as a state and asa nation. But it also takes into account the sensitivity ofthose for whom remembering the Holocaust is extremely important.

But in an unusual move, Duda also said he will ask the country's constitutional court to evaluate the bill theoretically opening the way for parliament to amend it.

On Tuesday, Israel's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Twitterthat Israel hopedthat before the billis finalized, "it will bepossible to agree on introducing changes and amendments."

Israel's education minister said on Monday he was "honoured"Poland had cancelled his visit to Warsaw this week because herefused to back down from condemning the bill.

"The blood of Polish Jews cries from the ground, and no lawwill silence it," Naftali Bennett later said in a statement.

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust MemorialMuseum, the Nazis also killed at least 1.9 million non-JewishPolish civilians.