Poland enacted a sweeping measure on Thursday aimed at removing from authority any officials who collaborated with the secret police before the Poles began their transition from Communism to democracy in 1989.
The law requires the estimated 300,000 Poles in positions of authority born before 1972, including academics, journalists and state company executives, to state in writing whether they had cooperated with the spy network of the former Soviet-backed government.
A national fact-finding and prosecuting body, the Institute of National Remembrance, will collect all the statements, investigate each case and prosecute anyone whom it accuses of spying for the Communist government or who is found lying.
Employers will need to verify that their employees have been vetted, and millions of documents from the Communist state security apparatus that policed Poland for four decades after World War II will be available for scrutiny by the news media.
Making a false statement will be a crime punishable by being barred from public life for up to 10 years, effectively preventing many Poles from working in their profession.
“Poland needs this law,” the chief of the institute, Janusz Kurtyka, said in an interview. “The country is still in the process of leaving the Communist period behind and tackling the long-term social and political effects of the dictatorship.”
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