Polish health minister Adam Niedzielski says he wants workers at Covid vaccination points to be given special legal protection, following an arson attack on vaccination facilities in Zamość on Sunday night.
No-one was hurt in the two fires, which damaged both a mobile vaccination point and the Sanepid public health headquarters in Zamość.
Minister Niedzielski called the attacks an act of terror against both the people who work in the facilities, and the Polish state.
The minister said he will use today’s Council of Ministers meeting to discuss additional measures to combat what he called the ‘anti-vaccination environment’, including giving vaccination workers the same legal protection as public officials.
A mobile vaccination bus in Gdynia was surrounded by anti-vaccine protestors at the weekend.
The crowd shouted “you are the killers” at the staff inside.
Source: PAP, Radio Gdańsk
Poland offers asylum to Belarusian Olympic athlete.
Belarusian Olympic athlete Kryscina Cimanouska will arrive in Warsaw on Wednesday after being granted political asylum in Poland.
The 200 metre runner said on Sunday that she had been dismissed from the Belarus Olympic team after criticising her country’s sporting authorities, and that Belarusian officials had tried to force her on a flight to Belarus via Istanbul.
She says she escaped by reporting to the Tokyo airport police.
Yesterday Cimanouska was given a humanitarian visa at the Polish embassy in Tokyo.
The Polish minister of sport, Piotr Gliński, wrote on Twitter that on her arrival in Poland Cimanouska will be given a place at one of the national sports centres to allow her to continue her athletic career.
Source: PAP
Bus drivers to see increased testing after fatal crash.
The Prime Minister says that there will increased checks on bus drivers across Poland after the death of a 19-year-old-woman in a crash involving a public bus in Katowice at the weekend.
The bus driver has been charged with one murder and two attempted murders following the collision between his vehicle and a group of young people early on Saturday morning.
The prosecutor’s office says that the 31-year-old man has eight road traffic collisions on his record, including one as the driver of a private car.
At a press conference on Monday the Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said the government wants to increase the frequency of tests for bus drivers.
On the same day, the prime minister announced changes to road traffic laws intended to make road travel safer, including higher fines for offences, and penalty points staying on a driver’s record for two years instead of one.
Source: PAP
Poland marks Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Commemorations have been held marking European Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Monday was the 77th anniversary of the murder of four thousand last remaining Roma and Sinti people at Auschwitz-Birkenau camp by Nazi Germans.
At the remembrance event the chairman of the Central Council of Sinti and Roma in Germany, Romani Rose, said Sinti and Roma people are still often subject to police violence in Europe, and have to live in inhumane conditions.
Rose said the occasion was a reminder to all to “raise our voices against the murderous racism that is raging again today”.
Source: PAP
Today will continue to be cloudy with rain showers likely this afternoon and the temperature rising to a cool 22 degrees Celsius or 71 Fahrenheit. Overnight will be dry with a low of 14 Celsius, 57 Fahrenheit.
