By Anna Koper
WARSAW (Reuters) -A far-right Polish lawmaker used a hearth extinguisher to place out Hanukkah candles within the nation’s parliament on Tuesday throughout an occasion with members of the Jewish group, upsetting outrage and main the speaker to exclude him from the sitting.
Footage posted on the web site of personal broadcaster TVN24 confirmed Grzegorz Braun of the Confederation social gathering take the extinguisher earlier than strolling throughout the foyer of the parliament to the place the candles have been, making a white cloud and forcing safety guards to hurry folks out of the realm.
Members of the Jewish group, together with youngsters, had gone to parliament at speaker Szymon Holownia’s invitation for its annual Hanukkah celebrations.
The footage confirmed folks within the neighborhood coated in powder from the extinguisher.
Afterwards Braun took to the rostrum within the chamber the place he described Hanukkah as “satanic” and mentioned he was restoring “normality”.
Requested simply after the incident if he was ashamed, Braun replied: “Those that participate in acts of satanic worship ought to be ashamed.”
Magdalena Gudzinska-Adamczyk was current on the scene and photographs confirmed her difficult Braun as he extinguished the candles.
“I really feel very in need of breath and have bother talking,” she instructed TVN24, her face coated in white powder. “I’ve stopped feeling secure on this nation.”
Holownia excluded Braun from the sitting of parliament forward of a confidence vote in newly appointed pro-EU prime minister Donald Tusk and mentioned he would inform prosecutors about his actions.
He later mentioned that Braun would lose half of his wage for 3 months and all parliamentary bills for six months.
“There can be no tolerance for racism, xenophobia, antisemitism … so long as I’m the speaker of parliament,” Holownia instructed reporters.
Braun, who has beforehand brought about a ruckus by approaching and shouting at lawmakers as they tackle parliament, left the chamber, shaking fingers with different far-right lawmakers.
His Confederation social gathering had been tipped to carry the steadiness of energy after the Oct. 15 election after a marketing campaign through which it targeted primarily on financial points and criticising the extent of Poland’s help to Ukraine. Nevertheless, ultimately it solely received 18 seats, up from 11 in 2019.
Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich instructed Reuters by phone that Braun’s actions weren’t consultant of the nation and that he was “embarrassed” by them.
“Somebody extinguished the Hanukkah candles and some minutes later we relit them,” he mentioned. “For hundreds of years our enemies have been making an attempt to extinguish us, from the time of the Maccabees proper by way of to Hamas. However our enemies ought to be taught, they can not extinguish us.”
Cardinal Grzegorz Rys of Poland’s Catholic church mentioned in an announcement posted on social media platform X that he was ashamed of Braun’s actions.
“(I) apologise to your entire Jewish group in Poland,” he wrote.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz; Modifying by Alison Williams)
At the moment Information High Newsmaac
