A far-right Polish lawmaker emptied a fire extinguisher onto a menorah, the seven-branched menorah symbol of Judaism, in parliament on Tuesday, an act immediately condemned by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
“Something unacceptable has happened. It is unfortunate,” Tusk told reporters as Parliament Speaker Simon Holonia Grzegorz Braun, an MP for the far-right Confederaja party, was excluded from a parliamentary meeting.
The menorah was lit in Parliament on the occasion of the celebrations of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah (the Festival of Lights), in the presence of Jewish figures.
France Press agency
In video images published by Polish media, Brown was seen dousing a menorah and filling the parliament hall with a cloud of fire extinguisher foam.
The Speaker of Parliament (Lower House of Representatives) condemned this action and described it as a “slap in the face of the Polish Parliament.”
“As long as I am the Speaker of Parliament, anti-Semitism, perversions and racism will not be tolerated,” Mr. Holonia said loudly after he interrupted the discussions.
At the conclusion of a meeting of the Presidency of Parliament, Mr. Holonia indicated that Mr. Brown had received the maximum financial penalties and that a complaint would be filed against him in the courts. He said the deputy could face up to two years in prison.
“Shame! A member of the Polish parliament just did this. A few minutes after we celebrated Hanukkah there,” Israeli Ambassador to Poland Yakov Levin said on social media, posting a video of Mr. Brown blowing out the menorah.
The majority of parliamentary groups, including the populist nationalist Law and Justice Party, condemned the action.
The lower house of Parliament was discussing the morning political speech by Prime Minister-elect Donald Tusk. In the afternoon, she must hold an almost guaranteed vote of confidence in her pro-European government, bringing an end to eight years of populist nationalist power in Poland.
In May, Grzegorz Brown attacked Polish-Canadian Holocaust historian Jan Grabowski, a professor at the University of Ottawa, with a microphone during a conference in Warsaw.
