Thousands may lose jobs in Polish 'purge'

POLAND: Hundreds of thousands of Poles could be sacked from work because they allegedly collaborated with the communist-era secret police after the country's right-wing government pushed through a law that critics say will spark a witch-hunt.

The move is seen as central to the "moral revolution" promised by the Law and Justice party when it swept to power last autumn, led by Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother, Jaroslaw, now the country's president and prime minister.

The one-time child actors ousted the former centre-left government with a vow to purge public life of corruption and of the many former communists who moved seamlessly into prominent and lucrative roles in capitalist Poland after 1989.

Under the new law backed by the Kaczynskis, all Poles born before August 1972 who hold so- called positions of public trust will not be allowed to continue in their jobs without a certificate showing they were not collaborators.

Compulsory vetting will apply to diplomats, local officials, board members of state-owned companies, media bosses, school headmasters, lawyers and journalists - a list that is expected to include hundreds of thousands of Poland's 38 million people.

The security service files of communist-era public figures will be published on the internet under the new law, together with the names of former secret police officials. "I am in favour of disclosing all informers and in favour of screening," said Jaroslaw Kaczynski who, like his brother, was an activist in the Solidarity movement that toppled communism in Poland and undermined it across eastern Europe.

Critics of the staunchly Catholic twins say their hatred for former communists rivals their loathing for homosexuals, recalling how Lech Kaczynski banned gay parades when he was mayor of Warsaw and called the organisers "perverts". Supporters however insist the law is vital to give Poland a clean break from its communist history.

"We have to come to terms with the past to build the foundations of a strong state, where no one will use secret police files to blackmail people," said Law and Justice parliamentarian Andrzej Mularczyk.

Opposition leaders say the law opens the way for a witch- hunt against former communists, however, warning that thousands of careers could be ruined on the strength of evidence found in secret police archives that are flawed and incomplete.

"This is a huge mistake," said Wojciech Olejniczak, a leader of the opposition Democratic Left Alliance. "It's going to cause a lot of problems for people who are unable to defend their reputation in court."